





















. * ~ • R 

Oi ^j s s ^ 

', To- ,0 ' * v 8 * V, 

r ^ S'.grffr-i ^ 


vv 

.... v . , X \V ^ 

y o , x ^ \ * 

/ .‘T', °- 



sy * * * 0 / "o 

► ^ rJX^gr/i, r <r- o 

* x ^'v 

£>■? _ <x 

• V ^ ° 

•*> v, <<' .j 



</\ -* < 

Qy ' i t, * s s ^6 < y o * x * /\ O -V ^ 

' 0‘ v *^ ,*4> c° N °- ? - ** 


y 

* 







^ v* 


*5 -V. * 


X°<^ '> 






























GERMAN EXPERIENCES: 


ADDRESSED TO 


THE ENGLISH; 


BOTH 

STAYERS AT HOME, AND GOERS ABROAD. 


BY 

tS 

WILLIAM IIOWITT, 

♦ * 

AUTHOR OF “ THE RURAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF GERMANY,” ETC. 


THIRD EDITION. 

LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 

PATERNOSTER-ROW. 




1844. 



% 




LONDON: 

Printed by Manning and Mason, Ivy Lane, St. Paul’s. 



* 


i 


PKEFACE. 



It was not my intention to have written a word of 
preface to this little volume, but as the work is just 
printed the German newspapers bring matter which 
so strikingly confirms the most important state¬ 
ments in it regarding the peculiar present social 
and political condition of that country, that I can¬ 
not resist the pleasure of alluding to it. The de¬ 
bates in the Baden Chamber continue to be, as 
they have now been for some years, most bold and 
admirable. The liberal spirit in the majority of 
representatives is worthy of all imitation through¬ 
out every state of Germany. Such men as Welcker, 
Bassermann, Sander, etc., would do honour to 
any nation. There is nothing wild, reckless, or 
dreamy about their demands of reform; they are 
distinguished by a great and sober earnestness, 
worthy of men who have not merely loved Liberty 
in their youth, but have learned to know her in 
their maturity, and to distinguish her from her 
counterfeit and worst foe, Licence. The proceed¬ 
ings of the Baden Chamber will really test the 
spirit of the German people. If they are worthy 
of rational liberty, they cannot avoid being inspired 
by the splendid example, of this little parlia- 



IV 


PREFACE. 


ment, and roused to life by the manly eloquence 
of its patriotic members. If the spirit of the Baden 
Chamber do not spread, the case of Germany is 
hopeless. 

There may be those who may think that I have 
pronounced a somewhat severe judgment on the 
political subserviency of the German people; but 
what said the representative Sander in the Chamber 
on the 15th of April last: “ From the French Revo¬ 
lution came storm on storm; and never has a 
nation—we speak it with shame and sorrow, yet 
without reproach against individuals—more igno- 
miniouslv conducted itself; for nothing more igno¬ 
minious can be found than when brothers suffer 
themselves to be led by a conqueror into battle 
against brothers. Let us not, then, deceive our¬ 
selves! Nothing but misfortune can come, if, 
through the repose of peace, through a too great 
contentment, we suffer ourselves to fall asleep, and 
forget that which maintains the rights and dignity 
of the country. It was exactly this which was 
then forgotten, and therefore the Empire fell. If 
we forget this now, the Confederation, and many of 
its eight-and-thirty states will fall. The Minister 
has consoled us with the assurance that Germanv 
is respected and honoured abroad. I lament that 
in this respect I am of a totally opposite opinion. 
That the same Minister, Peel, in England, who, 
with eloquent tongue at public dinners, and in 
Parliament, lauds the Northern Autocrat, also 
praises us, and that ail Britons do this when we 


PREFACE. 


V 


continue in the position that they wish us to do; 
namely, that we do not prosecute the interests of 
trade and the Zoll-Verein with vigour and zeal, is 
very comprehensible. But, on the other hand, I 
read in both the French and English newspapers 
that we are the most obsequious and slavish people in 
Europe. I remind the Minister of the article which 
The Times has published on the condition of the 
press in Prussia; and this paper is confessedly a 
Tory paper. A people that allows its frontiers to 
be menaced,—a people of eight-and-thirtv millions, 
which formerly played the chief role, yet which 
now is so little considered in international treaties 
that it is not able to assert the freedom of its two 
great rivers, and which must submit to many other 
disadvantages,— a people which does not know 
how to protect its internal freedom,—cannot per¬ 
manently maintain the respect of other nations.” 

Here Sander then goes on to shew how far 
superior to their present condition was that under 
the Empire up to 1806; and refers to a particular 
of the most vital consequence, yet which, in 
describing the fetters imposed by the present 
Princes on the nation, I had forgotten, or but 
briefly touched on,—that is, that every thing like a 
public meeting to complain of any grievance is 
utterly forbidden. Nay, the very collecting of 
signatures to a petition is equally so. He says that 
under the Empire the Press was for the most part 
free; the University presses were wholly so. The 
Professors were then called by the colleges them- 


VI 


PREFACE. 


selves, and might freely lecture, but that now if 
they utter a free word they are dismissed; and he 
very properly asks, whether, under such circum¬ 
stances, science and real learning can be promoted 
or maintained? He says that even the peasants up 
to 1806 could meet and prepare petitions to the 
Imperial Parliament, and could print what lay 
upon their hearts. 

These are statements singularly confirmative of 
those made in this volume; but still more striking 
are the observations of the representative Welcker, 
a popular historian, on that dreadful secret penal 
system to which I have devoted a chapter. On 
the 19th of April just past,* in the debate on the 
established system of penal jurisdiction, Welcker 
contrasted in a most able manner the wide difference 
between public and private trial. “ If,” said he, “ I 
were at the very beginning dragged into secresy 
and darkness, where I had the natural right to be 
openly tried; if here secresy operated in so subtle 
a manner, as for whole years to separate me from 
my connexions and from a defender; if, as in our 
Baden law, a judgment merely on suspicion could 
take place; if, as in many countries at the present 
time, torture were regularly combined with this 
proceeding; and, in a great part of Germany, a 
much worse torture than the ancient still exists, 
through secret martyrdom, cudgelings, and yet 
greater sufferings ; if, in the nature of this proceed¬ 
ing lie such things as those which have in a printed 
* Allgemeine Zeitung, April 2Gth, 1844. 


PREFACE. 


Vll 


document been laid before this chamber, no less 
than twenty cited cases of prison and legal mur¬ 
ders, in states which boast especially of an excellent 
administration of justice; if the Prussian minister 
state from his own country the cases of six innocent 
men who had been condemned to death, on their 
own extorted confessions , and yet in all these cases 
the clearest alibi had been afterwards proved ; if I 
have produced here examples of unfortunate people 
who have languished in prisons eight years, were 
finally condemned to death, and then whose inno¬ 
cence came to light,—let no one say that I have 
painted these horrors in too vivid colours.” 

The whole of this splendid speech teems with 
corroborations of what I had already written in 
this volume. “ Publicity and sworn jurors,” he 
says, ‘‘are human institutions, but they bring all 
unjust judgments to the day; but by our secret 
proceedings in Germany, it is an actual miracle, 
an exception, if an unjust judgment come to the 
day, since the man either dies on the scaffold, or 
in the house of punishment; and the whole pro¬ 
cess lies buried in the dust of the archives.” 

He represents “the dreadful anomaly, that, while 
civil causes can in many places be tried openly, in 
those cases in which all that is dearest to the citizen 
is concerned,—his honour, his life, his freedom,— 
the whole is transacted in chambers of darkness. 
But,” added he, “how much more fearful this 
became from the fact that all these secret courts 
were under the direct influence of the government, 


Vlll 


PREFACE. 


and every judge and officer of its appointment!” 
He reminded the Chamber of the practice of the 
Empire, where the judges were nearly, if not 
wholly, independent, but were now quite dependent, 
and not only so, but were placed in the position of 
the most absolute suspicion as to the impartiality of 
their judgments. “ Think only,” exclaimed the 
orator, “ of the monstrous contrast! Formerly 
Grolman declared, that it was but cabinet justice if 
the minister only during a trial communicated to a 
judge his view of the case; now, there stands the 
Attorney-general, instructed and directed by the 
government, constantly before the judge, delivers 
the accusation, demands the trial, demands at 
every step of it, in the name of the almighty 
power of the government, that the judge shall so 
and so decide. How must it go under such cir¬ 
cumstances with the poor accused in the secret 
chambers? If the antagonist power of publi¬ 
city, the control of their fellow-citizens, the light 
of the sun and of public opinion, do not step in, 
they who make themselves, politically or unpo- 
litically, unwelcome or hated, are lost beyond 
redemption.” 

I am proud to produce such eminent testimony 
to the accuracy of the statements in this volume, 
which will not fail to astonish the mass of English 
readers, who are little acquainted with the actual 
state of things in Germany. They who are really 
well informed of this state of things have long 
ceased to wonder, they only deplore. 


CONTENTS. 


PART I. 

Chapter I.—General Objects—these twofold — Information 
to Travellers and Settlers—Information to those at Home 
on the Dangers attending the Introduction of German 
Institutions ....... page 1 

Chapter II.—Erroneous Ideas with which People set out to 
Germany—False Ideas of German Character—these lead 
to speedy Disgust—Real Character of the Germans—Neces¬ 
sary, in going into their Country, to think more of the 
Pounds than the Poetry—What People intending to sojourn 
there should take with them, and what they should not—A 
salutary Caution on the Journey necessary—Expert Thieves 
on the Rhine—Singular Robberies of Passengers—The 
Author’s own case . . ..... 4 

Chapter III.—Choice of Place of Residence—Great mis¬ 
take of selecting small and especially University Towns— 
The Expensive, as well as Demoralized State of the Rhine 
Country—alleged Causes of this—The real Advantages 
of Germany, whether Economical, Educational, or Social, 
to be found only in the Capitals—peculiar recommen¬ 
dations of these—The serious Annoyances of and Objections 




X 


CONTENTS. 


to small German Towns—the worst of all, the University 
ones—Characteristics of these—Habits and gigantic Pre¬ 
tensions of German Professors — their Contempt of Women 
—Professor Schlosser’s Character of English Female Writers 
—Low Moral tone of German University Towns . page 16 

Chapter IV.—Advice how to secure all the possible Advan¬ 
tages, and to avoid, as much as possible, the Annoyances of 
a German sojourn—Modes of settling yourself, as to Loca¬ 
lity and Dwelling—German Lodging-housekeepers a pecu¬ 
liar Race — Necessity of guarding against the delusive 
Recommendations of Hotel Commissionaires—These paid by 
Lodging-housekeepers—Requisite Cautions in making your 
Agreement — Seek for Information from your Countrymen 
in the place—none to be obtained from German Families— 
Bad Character of German Lodging-housekeepers — this 
never breathed to Strangers—All Accounts of Outrage 
hushed up by the Police—Instance—Next to your own 
Countrymen, rely on your Banker—Customs connected with 
Furnished Rooms—The excellent System of Furnishing 
empty Rooms in a single day—a fact generally unknown 
to Strangers—other Cautions . . . . .31 

Chapter V.—Cautions as to German Servants—those who 
speak English a race of Thieves—endeavour to keep you in 
the dark as to real Prices of things—The best Servants 
those who speak no English—some of these invaluable— 
Advantage of having Dinners sent in from an Hotel—High 
Price of Fuel—Necessity of having in your Bills before it is 
known that you are quitting a Town—Excessive slowness of 
German Tradesmen—Ludicrous Instance of this . 42 

Chapter VI.—The Gentleman and Lady Lodging-house¬ 
keeper to be especially avoided—Exploits of one of this 
genus in Heidelberg—Contrast between the Natural Beau¬ 
ties of this Place and the Spirit of its Inhabitants . 51 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


Chapter VII.—False Accounts of Cheapness — the real 
extent of this—Mischievous Effect of a Statement in Mur¬ 
ray’s Hand-book of the cheapness of Heidelberg — The 
place as dear as inhospitable to Strangers—Living in 
Lodgings and Travelling Expenses to be taken into the 
account, in the comparative Cheapness of Foreign Resi¬ 
dence— Cheapness in many parts of England equal to that 
of the Rhine Country—The one great Economy of Ger¬ 
many, Education — demonstrated in comparison with 
English School Charges—Danger attending sending Chil¬ 
dren to German Schools—the only safe and economical 
Plan to accompany them—Prices of Articles of Life in 
Germany—of Articles of Clothing—Great Mystery of 
Cheap Living in Germany remains to be solved—No English 
can live for half the sum the German Families, in the same 
apparent scale of expenditure, do—Requires Three Years’ 
Experience to learn to live properly there—Plan of entrust¬ 
ing a number of Boys and Girls to a confidential English 
Tutor or Governess considered — Excessive Dangers at¬ 
tending sending Children to what are called the Cheap 
Schools of Germany—German Do-the-Boys’ Halls—Mode 
of Living in German Schools-—Danger of recommending 
particular Schools — deficiency of Comforts and Requisites 
in many of them—danger to Health and Constitutional 
Viaour—Wretched state of an Invalid in a German School 
—Plan for English Schools with all Continental advan¬ 
tages— Dangers of sending Young Men to German Univer¬ 
sities—Universal prevalence of Infidelity—the direct Con¬ 
sequence of German Philosophy . . . page 64 



Xll 


CONTENTS. 


PART II. 

Chapter I.— Causes and certain Consequences of the present 
fashionable Passion for German Institutions and Language 
— this passion fomented and misguided by interested 
Persons — German Things and Customs which are really 
worth imitating—these never seen by our Travelling Aris¬ 
tocracy — Public Walks for our Manufacturing Towns, 
when proposed by Mr. Buckingham, rejected by them— 
they do not see the Cheap, Easy, Agreeable Life of the 
People of Germany—The horrible State of the Poor in 
London and our Manufacturing Towns described, and com¬ 
pared with what is seen here, with their Cheap Food and 
Public Means of enjoyment—What the Aristocracy do see 
Abroad and imitate at Home—Police, Military Regulations 
and Costumes, Boards of Commissioners, and Plans of 
Government Education—Dreadful State of our Agricultural 
Population compared with that of Germany . page 93 

Chapter II.—Striking Progression of Germanization in our 
Institutions, obvious after a Three Years’absence, especially 
in the Police Department—Policemen as they were and as 
they are—Police Highwaymen with great Swords—The 
Policemen everywhere—Our last generation of Poets con¬ 
gratulated on having lived before the day of the Rural 
Police—Unconstitutional extension of Police into Govern¬ 
ment Spies, and an Armed Force, to control Elections— 
High time to see what other German Institutions are before 
we go further . . . . . . . .108 

Chapter III.— Original Free Spirit and Customs of the 
German race—The Norwegians and Swiss the sole branches 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


of this race who have preserved their Free Constitutions_ 

The main German race now totally enslaved—Fatal intro¬ 
duction of the Roman Law—Progress of German Enslave¬ 
ment—Their Enthralment completed by the present Princes 
—Treachery and Despotism of these Princes—Discontent 
yet Passiveness of the People , page 118 

Chapter IV. The Censorship of the Press. —The Art of 
Gagging—Gagging the Press vainly attempted in England 
—The gigantic and magnificent Power of the Press—A 
Monster in the hands of a Government—Effects of the 
Press on Literature and Politics in Germany—The Censor, 
a Literary Policeman, always sitting by the Authors’ and 
Editors’ Desks—Inconceivable Miseries of this System— 
Incalculable Mischief of the secret Murder of Ideas— 
Translation of “ Campbell’s Ode to the Germans,” as pre¬ 
sented to the Author by its Translator, a celebrated Poet, 
on being suppressed by the Censorship—Menzel’s, the His¬ 
torian, Description of the Effect of the Slavery of the Press 
on the German Character and Literature . . . 127 

Chapter V. The Police System. —Ostensibly for preserving 
Public Order, but really to suppress Public Opinion—The 
Police-Office a genuine Spider’s Web—A string to the 
Leg of every Man and Woman, in the shape of Secret Lists, 
Passports, Wander-books, Characters of Servants lodged 
with the Police—Interference in Marriages, and consequent 
enormous growth of Illegitimate Births—Penetration of 
the Police into all Domestic Affairs—Strange Regulations 
for Funerals—The Police Manager of Funerals—Police 
Magazine of Coffins—Police Bill of Charges and Classifica¬ 
tion of Funerals— Scrieery, a Government invention to 
give Bread to Officials—Results of this in Enormous Docu¬ 
ments on all possible Subjects—Curious Experiences on 
this head of some Young Englishmen—In what particulars 
this Police excels ours.. 139 



XIV 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter VI. The System of Patronage and Employ¬ 
ment. —The good old plan of Stuffing Mouths with Pudding, 
a third great Scheme of the German Governments—All 
Social and Commercial, as well as Magisterial Affairs taken 
into the hands of these Pudding-eaters—Amount of Officials 
in France, stated by Toqueville—Amount of the Armies of 
Germany—of Ecclesiastics, Nobles, and Officials—Patron¬ 
age and Subserviency amongst the University Professors— 
Curious Scenes and Plottings in a University Town—Con- 
vertion of Student Life into Official torpor—Amazing 
Amount of Officials in a single Village—Profuse Distribu¬ 
tion of Titles, Orders, and Badges, as a means of enslaving 
the Public Mind—Orders in Austria alone—A Paper from 
a German Periodical on “Titles and the Title-Disease of 
Germany”— Consequent slavish Spirit of the German 
People, as noted by Mr. Laing—The melancholy effect on 
the German Character, indicated by an Analysis of the 
German Song, “ Free is the Bursch”—Not yet at the end 
of the Chain of Despotism .... page 157 

Chapter VII. The Roman Law and its Secret Tri¬ 
bunals. —Law taught, not in Inns or Courts, but in the 
Universities — learned Lecturing thereon, but barbarous 
Practice—a totally Secret System, without Public Check 
and without Personal Security—The Rack still used as a 
Punishment, and Cudgeling, to compel Confession — No 
open Courts, open Evidence, open Pleading; every thing 
done by Writing—Estate, as well as Person, at the mercy 
of this Secret System, and devoured by the monstrous 
growth of Scribery —A Case cited by Mr. Laing—The most 
singular and amazing Case of the Cabinet-maker Wendt, 
on the charge of Poisoning his Wife—Appeals to the Uni¬ 
versities of Gottingen and Heidelberg in his case, and their 
strange Decisions—Remarks on this popular Case, and on 
the whole fearful System—Coquetry of German Professors 
for advancement.181 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


Chapter VIII. The Political Poets of Germany. —Count 
Auersperg; the Cosmopolitan Watchman; Hoffman von 
Fallersleben; the Black Songs of Benedikt Dalei; Her- 
wegh, etc. ....... page 231 

Chapter IX. The Present and the Future. 

Chapter X. National Education in Germany; its Objects 
and Effects, viewed with reference to National Edu¬ 
cation in England. —This is the Topstone to the grand 
Scheme of Government Despotism in Germany — florid 
Accounts of this System, and consequent Enthusiasm about 
it in England—Impossibility of introducing this System into 
a Free Country—undesirableness of such transplantation— 
consequent failure of all such attempts here — the True 
Nature of this System still needs to be better known here 
—Mr. Laing’s Remarks on it—Where wrong, and where 
right—The Lowest Class of Schools only introduceable by 
a Government amongst us, and why they should not be 
so introduced ........ 299 

Chapter XI. How would the Prussian System of 
Popular Education operate in England. —Mr. Laing’s 
Opinion of its Fatal Effects in Prussia. Mr. Bisset Haw¬ 
kins’ Opinion. Concurrent Opinion of its being a Total 
Failure—the Causes of this— Tested by the Author through 
Personal inquiries amongst the People, and found to be a 
Nullity—The true State of Things amongst the Students 
at the Universities—Misrepresentations of Reviews on 
this subject—The Citizen Schools the best in their Ope¬ 
ration, but the impossibility of any Government introducing 
them here—Ignorance of the so-called Educated Working 
Population of Germany—Rude state of Boys in Towns— 
The worst feature of the German System, its being a State 
Puppet, with its Strings in the Government’s hands— 
Instructions to all Schoolmasters to inculcate Passive Obe- 





XVI 


CONTENTS. 


dience—Different State of the Popular Mind in England, 
and different Results to be expected from a General Educa¬ 
tion of the People—Fatal Error of committing such a System 
to the hands of any Government—A National Education 
distinguished from a Government Education —English 
Institutions all the Work of the People themselves, and 
that of National Education must not, and cannot be other¬ 
wise—Easy Mode of carrying this out—Grand Emulation 
awakened between different Religious Bodies, and their 
Subscriptions for Popular Instruction — Mrs. Hippersley 
Tuckfield’s Plan—Working Schools. . . page 313 

Chapter XII. Concluding Remarks. —The Author reverts 
to his Objects in this Work—The Character of the Govern¬ 
ment Institutions here described, and the Character and 
Habits of the People, to be carefully distinguished—The 
latter described at large in “ The Rural and Social Life 
of Germany”—Further acquaintance with each other will 
not lead England to copy the Political Institutions of 
Germany, but to reap the advantages of Trade—The vast 
influence which the Abolition of the Corn Laws will have in 
this respect—The Opinions of Mr. Laing reviewed and 
disproved on Statistical Evidence—Alarm of the German 
Manufacturers at the prospect of the Abolition of the Corn- 
Laws—The Prosperity of Hamburg a proof of the Benefits 
of Trade between the two Countries—Free Institutions will 
proceed from England to Liberalise the whole Continent, 344 



ERRATA. 


Page 27, line 23, for “ moon-light,” read “ moon-like,” 

— 52, — 20, for “whose,” read “ where.” 

— 93, — 3, for “ administration,” read “ admiration.” 

— 157, — 4, for “ its,” read “ their.” 

— 169, — in note, for “mountains,” read “ mountain.” 

— 194, — 16, for “ investigation,” read “ instigation.” 

— 214, — 7, for “ Spruch-collegian, read “ Sprucli-collegia.” 

— 223, — in note, for “removed,” read “ reproved.” 

— 227, — 22, for “ land,” read “laud.” , 

— 274, — in note, for “ Volksbewhsstseins wisd,” read 

“ Yolksbewusstseins wil’d for “ dasser,” read 
“dass er for “ alsehen,” read “ als ehen.” 

— 296, — 7, for “ Tartar-eagle,” read “ Russian vulture.” 



GERMAN EXPERIENCES, 


ADDRESSED TO 


THE ENGLISH. 


CHAPTER I. 


In my work on Germany there are certain subjects 
which I either omitted or merely slightly touched 
upon, as not coming expressly within the range of 
its “ Social and Rural life,” and as calculated to 
expand that work beyond reasonable bounds. On 
these particular subjects I wished to speak too 
expressly with a reference to the advantage of my 
countrymen, both public and private, and therefore 
resolved to treat them in a little separate volume. 

Vast numbers of our countrvmen are now settled, 
at least for a time, in Germany; and, independent 
of merely summer tourists, great numbers are still 
annually passing over to reside there for a season. 
Some are led by the simple desire or necessity for 
change; some go to seek health at the baths; some 
with a view to economy; and others, and this a 

A B 





2 


GERMAN 


large number, with a view to the education of their 
children. To all these the experiences of a person 
who has already made the sojourn, and particu¬ 
larly in pursuit of education, I am sure may be 
of no trifling benefit. Such a little manual would 
have saved us infinite annoyances; would have 
saved us much time, much misery and disappoint¬ 
ment. It is what we should have hailed as most 
welcome. I shall, therefore, endeavour to make 
the path clear to my successors, in all those parti¬ 
culars which every one is asking for on his arrival, 
and which no one can furnish in a palpable and 
lasting form. What people should take with them, 
and what they should not take with them; where 
and how they should locate themselves; what 
dangers and impositions they have to guard 
against; and what they are, and are not to expect 
in the most important particulars,—these are the 
points that every one is anxious to obtain informa¬ 
tion upon, and which it shall be the object of this 
little volume to endeavour to supply. 

But there is a second, and still more serious 
object in this work. Political and other circum¬ 
stances have brought us, of late years, into a close 
connexion with Germany. The Queen’s marriage 
preeminently has promoted this tendency. The 
literature, the music, the opera, the language, and 
the institutions of that country have become more 
or less fashionable. In education, particularly, 
we have shewn a disposition to admire and adopt 


EXPERIENCES. 


3 


its institutions. Nay, its systems of police, and 
similar social and political organizations, have 
grown rapidly into imitative life amongst us. 
Now to copy and engraft on our own practices 
what is good in those of foreign nations is wise; 
but there is a danger that when a thing becomes 
fashionable, that we shall cherish an indiscrimi- 
nating enthusiasm, and under its influence adopt 
not the good only but the bad. There is no question 
that this is our case just now, and the voice of 
warning shall not be wanting on my part, to point 
out the perils which are from this quarter stealing 
silently but with firmest foot upon us. Mistaken 
notions of many German institutions prevail to a 
wonderful extent amongst our people at home, 
and none so mistaken or so imminently dangerous 
as those connected with popular education. Let 
us then endeavour, in the first place, to clear the 
course for those of our countrymen who are con¬ 
templating a residence in that country; and, in 
the second, by a more familiar view of the spirit 
and working of German institutions, to guard 
ourselves at home from the mischiefs with which 
their too easy adoption threatens us. 


b 2 


4 


GERMAN 


CHAPTER II. 


The most important point in setting out for any 
foreign country is to go with correct notions of 
what it is, and, therefore, what you have to expect. 
There is no country of the European continent 
where people are so apt to carry preconceived 
ideas of an erroneous, and therefore delusive and 
disappointing nature, as Germany. Those espe¬ 
cially who are a little poetically inclined, are apt 
to entertain I know not what conceptions of a pri¬ 
mitive, simple-hearted, intellectual, and kind nation. 
They imagine an old-world elysium, and a golden age 
of pastoral simplicity and poetry. This is the finest 
possible mood to go out with if you wish to become 
the prey of imposition, and to make a rapid transi¬ 
tion to disgust and disappointment. It is true that 
the Germans are a people of a simpler and more 
economical style of living than we are; but they 
are by no means wanting in worldly shrewdness, 
and a sharp look-out after their own interests. 
Things are to a certain degree cheaper there, espe¬ 
cially the farther eastward that you advance; but 
it is nevertheless true, that the English generally 



EXPERIENCES. 


5 


pay from twenty to forty per cent, more for every 
thing than they ought to do. Intellectual, and 
somewhat sentimental, the Germans as a nation 
may be considered; but human nature is pretty 
much the same everywhere, and the bulk of those 
amongst whom you are thrown in the concerns of 
daily life anywhere, are not those of the most 
exalted and romantic minds; on the contrary, they 
are the classes which look upon you as their 
natural prey, and are as canny as any Scotchman 
in making the most of you. You are soon aston¬ 
ished to find how closely simplicity of manner, or 
mode of life, is connected with selfish exactness; 
with a want of the refinement, of delicacy of sen¬ 
timent and action, that you are accustomed to at 
home; and how all that is really superior, be it in 
intellect or in heart, gradually draws back before 
you, and concentrates itself in the few shining 
exceptions. 

That class of persons who have gone to Germany 
with the most enthusiastic ideas of simple grace, 
poetry, and warmheartedness, have always expe¬ 
rienced the most bitter disappointment. They have 
generally commenced their study of the German lan¬ 
guage with Grimms’ Marchen; they have read the 
Life of Jung Stilling; they have then plunged into 
the noble poetry of Schiller, and the Faust, the Her¬ 
mann and Dorothea of Goethe, the beautiful pic¬ 
ture of country and domestic life in Voss’s Louise. 
They have gazed with admiration at the designs of 




6 


GERMAN 


Retzseh; and have thus set forth with the ideal of 
a country in their heads compounded of those 
materials, forgetful that these are not the realities 
of life, but the golden embellishments of poets. 
Let all such enthusiasts get rid as fast as possible 
of these rainbow fancies. Let them expect that 
though they will find much to admire in the litera¬ 
ture of Germany, they will also find that the lite¬ 
rature is far more attractive than the life. Much 
too as there is in the life which will charm them,— 
the open accessibility of fields and forests, the 
delightful public walks, the easy hours and easy 
prices of the finest concerts, operas, and galleries 
of art, much too in the ease and simplicity of 
domestic arrangements; they will find too many 
things which rub off dreadfully the poetry of illu¬ 
sion ; much coarseness of manner and speech, 
many habits which astonish a refined people. 

Let all such persons, therefore, as they wish to 
enjoy what is really satisfactory, cast away as fast 
as possible all Arcadian ideas. Let them prepare 
to find a people civil and friendly, but naturally 
much fonder of themselves and their own people 
than of foreigners; very glad to have you at their 
balls and parties, but not prone to rush into enthu¬ 
siastic friendships with you. A people, in fact, 
much fonder of our money than of ourselves; who 
are jealous of our wealth and greatness, and hate 
us cordially because we were never beaten by 
Buonaparte like themselves. Above all, let them 



EXPERIENCES. 


7 


never forget that they are not going to exist entirely 
on the books and the poetry, in the woods or the 
public gardens; but, in houses, of which they will 
have real earthly rent to pay, and on the articles 
furnished by butchers, bakers, grocers, and such 
mortals, who are no more poetical or less attentive 
to number one than the very acute and practical 
fellows of their English experience. They will do 
well, instead of dreams of Werthers and Char¬ 
lottes, of Retzsch’s graceful youths and maidens, 
or of Strauss and Lanners’ bands, to possess them¬ 
selves with the idea that there is a very large body 
of people who are expecting them, just as our 
fishermen expect the annual shoal of herrings, and 
are prepared to extract from them as much of their 
English gold as they can. The Germans travel 
from home only to gain; we travel to spend. 
The Germans go out in swarms to every nation 
and city where money is to be earned, and they are 
not therefore likely to neglect the gathering of it 
at home. We conquer nations and plant colonies; 
but the Germans, like the Jews, insinuate them¬ 
selves into the mass of the population of all known 
countries, from America to the East Indies, from 
Australia to Russia. They abound throughout 
Turkey, Wallachia, Syria, the United States, France, 
and England. In Germany we expect to win 
nothing but pleasure or accomplishment: it is too 
poor a country to offer any temptation to moneyed 
speculators—there is nothing of the sort to be got 


8 


GERMAN 


there; but here, as everywhere else, we are expected 
to spend, and a large class has sprung up which 
depends almost entirely on our expenditure. They 
are not by any means pleased with us if we do not 
spend freely. In England the Germans seek in 
shoals a participation of our wealth. I know not 
if it be statistically correct, but the Germans here 
themselves assert that there are not less than forty 
or fifty thousand of their countrymen in London ; 
that Whitechapel is half populated with them, and 
that Manchester has its ten thousand Germans. 
All these are close, practical, fast-sticking fellows, 
who, like the Scotch, are enthusiasts regarding all 
that belongs to their own country, yet never care 
to return to it. Their affection, like that of Cole¬ 
ridge for his wife and children, is too tender to 
allow them to live together. Of these same lovers 
of the Fatherland, but deeper lovers of themselves, 
we remind our poetical readers, once more, that 
there is a large class expecting them in that 
country, and we therefore bid those that are going 
think first of the pounds and afterwards of the 
poetry. 

Having, therefore, resolved to carry with you as 
little poetic luggage as possible, the next thing is to 
follow the same rule regarding your other luggage. 
It is always a cpiestion with those who are intending 
to spend a considerable period abroad, what shall 
we take with us? We here answer, as little as 
possible. It is true that the steamers allow you, 


EXPERIENCES. 


9 


each person, a hundred weight of luggage; and 
people therefore think, we may as well take this, 
that, and the other; but they should recollect that 
railroads do not allow so much, often nothing,—as 
through Belgium,—that diligences allow but little, 
and hired coachmen expect fares in proportion to 
your weighty packages. You should recollect too 
that there are such things as custom-house officers, 
and that the more you have with you, the more 
chances of having duty to pay, and at the least, 
the more annoyance of searching and overhauling. 
What you really should take, is a good stock of 
clothes, a good quantity of household linen, though 
you may purchase that too about as reasonably as here; 
a good set or two of table knives and forks, for those 
of the country are wretched; and a supply of plate 
for daily use. Those who keep a private medicine 
chest at home had better take it, for the pharma¬ 
ceutical preparations are infinitely inferior to ours. 
Some persons take sets of china with them; but 
this is liable to get broken, will have on reaching 
the frontiers of Germany to be put into w'hat is 
called transitu, that is, be sealed up, and sent on by 
a common carrier at your expense, and may after 
all be much better bought for your household use, 
and sold again when you leave. During your 
abode abroad, all sorts of things will accumulate 
that you wish to bring home, and you will find on 
arriving at London that freight and duty will 
amount to a considerable sum. Though I paid 


10 


GERMAN 


little or nothing on this score on going out, it cost 
me on my return, in freight and duty, about fifty 
pounds. Above all things, amongst those articles 
which you should not take with you, are English 
servants. Take none, or at most one confidential 
and well-tried one. All experience teaches the 
grievous mistake of taking English servants into 
Germany. Many a one who is a good servant 
here, is there good for nothing, a fish out of water, 
discontented with every thing, and home sick. It 
is then no easy matter to get them back again. 
They have not the same object that you have to 
make a foreign sojourn interesting. They are 
comparatively useless to you, because they are 
ignorant both of the language and the habits of the 
people that you are amongst. They cannot go on 
errands, or shop for you. And besides being use¬ 
less, they are often most annoying by their wretched, 
discontented looks and complaints. The Marth% 
Penny in Hood’s “Up the Rhine,” is a perfect 
specimen of female servants under these circum¬ 
stances. We had a Martha too, exactly a Martha 
Penny. An excellent servant she was at home, 
but the moment she set foot in the boat at the Tower 
Stairs, all her virtue, as if it belonged to the Eng¬ 
lish ground, forsook her. She was worse than 
useless on the voyage, and when arrived at our 
destination she went about with the gait and the 
face of despair. But as a matter of convenience 
and economy, the taking of English servants is 


EXPERIENCES. 


11 


most unwise. An English housemaid will cost 
you 12/. a year, a cook from 16/. to 20/. Their fare 
out and back will not be less than 8/. each, that is, 
an English maid-servant will cost you from 20/. to 
28/. for a year, and it is two to one if you keep her 
three months, but will be glad to send her home; 
while for a German housemaid you will give 4/. or 
51 .; for an excellent cook 8/. These servants will 
know how to do anything you want doing; and can 
help you in intercourse w r ith the natives, while 
English ones are totally useless. The wages of 
men servants in the same proportion. 

In this chapter I will not pause to ask where or 
why you are going, but as you are going, and have 
your luggage put up, I have only to add, look well 
after it. The Germans, as a people, are a very 
honest people; but they never did, nor do now, pro¬ 
fess to have none of the genus thief amongst them. 
A lady of my acquaintance, after dosing herself 
well with German poetry, set out for that country 
with the most angelic ideas of the honest Germans, 
which were not disturbed, luckily, till she remarked 
certain bunches of thorns stuck into the cherry-trees 
by the way-side, and on inquiring received the 
alarming answer that they were to keep boys out of 
the trees when the cherries were ripe. My friend, 
who had also imbued herself with the Words¬ 
worthian, as well as the German poetry, imme¬ 
diately exclaimed to herself—“ O ! the child is 
father to the man. Those who pick cherries, may 


12 


GERMAN 


also pick pockets,” and she wisely began to take 
good care of her own. Of all quarters of Germany, 
the one by which the great mass of our countrymen 
enter it, is that of the Rhine; and this is precisely 
the most dishonest portion of the whole country. I 
have travelled through almost all parts of the 
nation during an abode of three years, with my 
family, and lost nothing at all with the exception 
of a few trifles which naturally vanish at the inns 
of great cities; but on the Rhine I have been re¬ 
peatedly fleeced, and it is indeed a region regarded 
by the Germans themselves as the most corrupt in 
principle of the whole land. They attribute this to 
its exposure to the invasions and inroads from the 
side of France, which it has from age to age suf¬ 
fered, and to the influx of all sorts of demoralized 
characters into so great a thoroughfare of nations. 
In particular the neighbourhood of Cologne is 
notorious for its light-fingered gentry. The very 
first time we came there we witnessed a very adroit 
piece of these gentlemen’s practice. Mrs. Howitt 
and Miss Clara Novello, who was on her way to 
Italy, had been to Farina’s and purchased some 
cases of his eau de Cologne. These were sent in 
and laid on the table in the great dining-room of 
the hotel while we went out before dinner to view 
the cathedral. On our return we found one of 
them broken open and cleared of every bottle, the 
lid of the case being merely put down again. On 
calling the landlord, he treated it quite as a matter 


EXPERIENCES. 


13 


of course, and at once replaced it at his own 
charge. 

On our return down the Rhine last summer, and 
three years after this incident, between St. Goar 
and Cologne, we had a hand carpet-bag, which had 
travelled with us in perfect security all over the 
country by day and by night, cut open on the 
packet, plundered of articles and five-franc pieces 
to the value of nearly ten pounds. It was cut open 
along one of the bottom seams, and carefully sewed 
up again so as not to allow the remaining things to 
fall out w r hen the bag was first lifted up; but the 
needle was left hanging to the thread. 

This occurred on board the steam-boat Ludwig, 
belonging to the Cologne company; which we now 
found to our comfort was a regular den of thieves. 
The Directors, to whom I immediately made the 
fact known, gave themselves instant and the most 
active trouble to discover the offenders. The vessel 
was searched, but in vain; the thieves were too 
adroit. On reaching our inn, we soon heard that 
we had but shared the fate of a good many others 
before us in this very vessel. A lady had had a 
casket broken open on the cabin table, and various 
valuable rings and jewels taken out of it. She dis¬ 
covered the theft immediately, and called for the 
captain. A waiter was seen to throw something 
out of the window into the Rhine. Several persons 
rushed to the spot, and one ring was found still 
lying on the ledge. The waiter was convicted, and 
committed to a six years’ imprisonment. 


14 


GERMAN 


An English naval officer, on arriving at Cologne, 
I believe by this very boat, found his trunk was 
carried off, containing his clothes and money, and 
he landed at Cologne with only the clothes on his 
back and a very small sum of money in his pocket; 
a perfect stranger in the country, and ignorant of 
its language. His trunk he never saw any more 
of. On mentioning these facts to one of the Di¬ 
rectors of the General Steam Navigation Company 
soon after, he said, “ You see the black portman¬ 
teau there. This summer I made a journey up the 
Rhine on the Company’s business, and for the sake 
of gaining an hour one morning went on board of 
the other Company’s boat, Ludwig, for the next 
stage. On board my portmanteau was broken open, 
all my papers carried off, and never recovered.” 

On ascending the Rhine a few months afterwards, 
I was informed by one of the Directors at Cologne 
that they had made no discovery respecting the 
robbery on myself, but had committed and had had 
four of their people of the steamer Ludwig sen¬ 
tenced to six years imprisonment for similar acts. 
What was singular was that the Cologne Company, 
though so many of these disreputable acts had taken 
place on board their vessels, had taken no step 
for the greater security of passengers’ luggage, but 
suffered it to be piled on the deck exposed to the 
same accidents as before, while the General Steam 
Company had adopted the very means I had 
recommended to the Cologne Company, that of a 



EXPERIENCES. 


15 


railed inclosure on the deck, in which the lu^ao-e 
of the passengers could be locked up. 

These facts will be enough to induce tourists up 
the Rhine, not only as Hood advises them, to “ take 
care of their pockets,” but also to take care of their 
trunks and bags. 


16 


GERMAN 


CHAPTER III. 


The objects, we have said, of English visiters to 
Germany, are health, economy, an agreeable 
change and relaxation by change of scene and of 
society, and the education of their children. The 
first great question with any one of these objects is, 
where shall you locate yourself? Except on the 
score of health, which determines its own location 
by the particular bath recommended for the case, 
or by the necessity for change, quiet, diversion, or 
whatever else may be requisite, all the other ob¬ 
jects point directly to the larger cities. It is a 
very mistaken notion that the smaller towns are 
much cheaper than the larger ones. To foreigners 
the reverse is very often the case. In small towns 
a particular set of tradesmen make a point of 
serving the English, and, as I shall explain in a 
subsequent chapter, you fall into their hands in 
such a manner that you are regularly and unmer¬ 
cifully fleeced, without the power of helping your¬ 
selves. In the choice of houses or lodgings you 
are extremely circumscribed, and pay proportion- 
ably high; in fact, every thing is higher, except the 



EXPERIENCES. 


17 


most important thing of all, the quality of the 
society, and that is infinitely lower. Whether, 
therefore, you seek diversion, economy, or educa¬ 
tion, go to the capitals; avoid the small provincial 
towns as you would avoid the plague. 

Vast numbers of our country people flock into 
the Rhine country, because it is easy of access,— 
because it is a very charming country so far as 
nature goes; but it is, at the same time, with the 
exception of Prussia, the very dearest part of Ger¬ 
many, and what is worse, it is the most corrupt 
and demoralized. It is not in the cities of the 
Rhine that you will find the genuine German cha¬ 
racter in its primitive truth and simplicity. It is 
a great thoroughfare of tourists, and that of itself 
is enough to stamp it as corrupt and selfish. True, 
it is a lovely country, and if you are content with 
the charms of nature you cannot well have a plea¬ 
santer. But if vou seek either the highest state of 
German social culture in the purest state of its 
moral simplicity, you must go farther. The Rhine 
country has for ages, like our border-lands formerly, 
been the theatre of contentions between the Ger¬ 
mans and French, as well as other armies, not 
excepting those of Spain, England, Holland, and 
Belgium. It has been exposed to successive burn¬ 
ings and devastations; to successive overrunnings 
with the veriest off-scourings of all European so¬ 
ciety, the soldiery of the armies, and their lewd 
follow T ers. These things, as well as the system 




c 






18 


GERMAN 


of baronial and knightly robbery which for ages 
existed there, have left deep traces in the moral 
constitution of the inhabitants; and throughout 
Germany the Germans themselves protest against 
the Rhine country being taken as exhibiting a 
fair specimen of German character. They hardly 
allow that the Rhine people are genuine Germans. 
The cities, moreover, are not first-rate cities in 
themselves. They do not offer the advantages of 
capitals, but they offer more than their expenses; 
they press upon you their social corruptions, more 
markedly and more nearly as they are more 
confined, with the addition of the greatest curse of 
social existence, the most rampant gossip, scandal, 
and personal interference of small towns, — that 
social pestilence which the Germans call Klein- 
stiidterei, or Little-town-ism. The language in 
these towns is, too, to a certain degree, corrupt. 
Even Frankfort, one of the very best, most respect¬ 
able, and most expensive of them all, has this fault 
in a high degree. 

If, therefore, you seek economy, you must ad¬ 
vance farther; for the highest degree of cheapness, 
into Bavaria. Even in Munich, with all its advan¬ 
tages of good society, splendid displays of ancient 
and modern art, excellent opera, and good univer¬ 
sity and schools, you will find houses, and the 
whole material of living, greatly cheaper than in 
those towns. But if you would choose such a city as 
Nuremberg, a city full of the picturesqueness and 


EXPERIENCES. 


19 


the antiquity of art, a city still famous for its active 
spirit of trade, and for the richness of its handi¬ 
craft productions, for its moral tone, and the cor¬ 
diality of its inhabitants, you would be astonished 
at the extreme cheapness of every thing. A fur¬ 
nished house, w T hich in a Rhine town would cost 
you 90/. a year, would not cost you in Nuremberg 
more than 40/., or even one in every respect supe¬ 
rior, more than the half, 4 51. Many men of note 
and stand, live there in good and roomy houses of 
from 6/. to 10/. a year rent. Living is on the same 
scale: the schools are excellent, and masters for 
music and modern languages, of first-rate accom¬ 
plishment, are to be had at a most moderate rate. 
As Nuremberg may now be reached by steam up 
the Main from Frankfort, we may confidently cal¬ 
culate that in a short time it will become a great 
resort of English families, who are proposing an 
abode of some years for the education of their 
children, and seek at the same time, quiet, good, 
intelligent society, cheapness, and a pleasant country. 

But where people wish to secure all possible ad¬ 
vantages, including even cheapness and a charming 
country, these are to be found in the very capitals 
themselves. Where can people find more charm¬ 
ing countries than those in the neighbourhood of 
Vienna or Dresden? In the one you have the 
hills of the Alpine range stretching from the city 
on to Baden, and quite away into Styria. You 
have these full of the most delicious retreats, or 

c 2 




20 


GERMAN 


scenes of rural gaiety. You have a rail-road to 
whirl you away to any of these scenes in a wonder¬ 
fully short space of time, or you have the Danube 
inviting you with its daily steamers to trace it 
upward, amid its mountains and wild forests, its 
antique towns and villages, its old castles and hang¬ 
ing vineyards; or downward into Hungary, or to 
Constantinople itself. In the other you have the 
gladsome Elbe, inviting you to a three-hours’ sail 
into its delightful Saxon Switzerland, or to the 
ancient splendours of Prague—villages and vine¬ 
yards scattered in a smiling country around it, 
enough to lure away young hearts, or poetic ones, 
for many a joyous day’s ramble. Either of these 
cities is as cheap as any Rhine town, and even much 
cheaper. And even if you obtain those two im¬ 
portant benefits, economy and the enjoyment of a ’ 
delightful country, what do you not in a capital 
obtain besides ? The whole mass of advantages is 
on your side. You have whatever you seek—diver¬ 
sion, society,music, public spectacles, public gardens, 
operatic and theatric representations, schools, and 
teaching in every department, of the very highest 
quality. It must be recollected that a German 
capital is not like a London. It is in population 
but like one of our provincial towns; you can es¬ 
cape into the country in a few minutes on any side, 
and have besides such public gardens and walks 
as no English town has. It must be confessed, 
that those little but gay capitals are the very per- 







EXPERIENCES. 


21 


fection of the combination of life’s pleasures and 
advantages. They have all the gaiety and charms 
of a capital, with the enduring freshness and sub¬ 
urban leafiness and retirement of a village. In 
point of amusement, you have all the highest class 
of amusements, those which at once blend the won¬ 
ders and charms of art with the pleasures of rural 
life and the sweetness of nature, in the highest 
grade of excellence, and lying within so easy a reach 
both of person and purse. From your tea-table 
you may walk forth into the most charming gar¬ 
dens, where the first masters of Germany are giving 
public concerts, and where, to use our newspaper 
phrase, all the beauty, rank, and fashion of the 
capital are to be found. Your entrance-fee to this 
brilliant magic circle is four pence! and you may 
at the same time enjoy coffee or ices, or other such 
refreshments, on the same moderate scale. If you 
turn your steps in another direction, and prefer for 
the evening the gay circle of the theatre or the 
opera, to the lamp-hung trees and the happy-look- 
ing groups seated beneath them, at their tables 
covered with refreshments, coffee, or wine, you 
step into a bright and gay scene of social elegance, 
scenic and artistic brilliance. You listen to the 
grand compositions of Beethoven or Mozart, to the 
singing of Staudigl, Lutzer, or Schroeder Devrient, 
or to the comic humour of Schoultz, the Liston of 
Germany. You can enjoy all this for twenty pence, 
in the most fashionable part of the house, or can 


22 


GERMAN 


for five pence, if you choose to stand in the aisles. 
If you prefer the private dance, or the private 
social circle, there you can find them in the highest 
rank of fashion, in the selectest gathering of lite¬ 
rary and intellectual eminence. If the still selected 
circle of closer friendship be your choice, it is there 
that you can build this circle from a wide choice 
and a higher class of mind and accomplishment. 
If you prefer utter seclusion, the only place where 
you can enjoy this, independent of impertinent 
curiosity, is the capital. The means of education 
are opened before you here in the same abundant 
quantity and preeminent quality. What has the 
the provincial town to offer you in comparison? 
Every thing of a lower grade. The higher genius, 
the higher intelligence, the higher artistic excel¬ 
lence it does not possess. Its masters, its public 
walks, its galleries of art, are wanting, or are of an 
inferior order. But while it has not those to give 
you, what does it not force upon you that the capital 
frees you from? It forces on you actual increase 
of expense. You have not the same ample choice 
of house or lodging. The number of these in an 
ordinary German town is limited, and the habitual 
caution of the Germans will not allow them to 
increase the number at the risk of lowering the 
price. This caution is often carried so far as to 
keep away many families which would otherwise 
have settled there; but at the same time it has the 
effect of maintaining the rental at an extravagant 











EXPERIENCES. 


23 


height. In these small towns the visiters are a 
distinct and marked class, and they create the con¬ 
sequent class of lodging-house-keepers, who, know¬ 
ing that the accommodation is but of a certain 
extent, prey most unmercifully on the small num¬ 
ber of temporary sojourners. In the capitals, 
letters of lodgings and livers in them are more lost 
and blended in the great mass of the population. 
There is more choice, and therefore a more mode¬ 
rate price. It is the same with the shops. In the 
large town, you are less confined in your number 
of shops, and less preyed upon. But the greatest 
of all advantages of a capital, so far as your daily 
peace and comfort are concerned, is, that it frees 
you from the already mentioned curse of Klein- 
stadterei—from the low and frivolous gossiping 
—from the low and amphibious grade of society— 
from the inevitable contact in a little place with 
vulgar minds and manners, and with the petty 
annoyances, jealousies, and cabals of this most 
pestiferous of human abodes. Shun, therefore, 
I repeat it, small towns as you would shun the 
plague, but preeminently and most especially a 
little University town. That is the plague of 
plagues, and the sore of sores ; it is a moral sink, 
a purgatory of vulgar passions, and a devouring 
canker of all peace. 

Small towns all the world over, are notorious for 
their gossiping, prying into family privacies, and 
petty cabals; but a German little town is such a 


24 


GERMAN 


purgatory, par excellence , because it has no interest 
in great and national politics, to engage the pas¬ 
sions, the attention, and the vituperative eloquence 
of its lazy people; yet, still eminent above all in 
this bad eminence is the little University town. It 
is infinitely more demoralized, more frivolous, more 
impertinent and vapid in its mind and tastes, than 
any other. Let no man here imagine that this 
proceeds from the students in particular; no, it 
comes from the opposite and unexpected quarter of 
the Professors. 

The students are a moving population. They 
come and go, and fresh ones take their place. 
Whatever injury such a town may do to them, is, 
like their sojourn there, temporary ; but, on the 
mass of the inhabitants, the effect of the abode of a 
body of young men and strangers, large in propor¬ 
tion to its other population—full of animal life—^ 
and with few social resources in their leisure hours, 
cannot avoid, to a certain extent, being bad. The 
fixed population of the town receives the injurious 
impression of such a body, be it more or less, in 
proportion. But, these young men, though they 
have a European reputation for their singular 
habits and customs, I have often had occasion to 
remark, are as orderly a body as, under such cir¬ 
cumstances, can be found in the world; and I do 
not ascribe any great amount of the notoriously 
low morals and social state of the little Universitv 

•f 

towns of Germany to them, but, as I have said, to 
the Professors. 











EXPERIENCES, 


25 


These Professors may be, and commonly are, 
men of very orderly and domestic habits, mostly 
are very learned, most astoundingly plodding in 
their labours and studies; not only lecturing pub¬ 
licly and privately, daily, on the most abstruse 
philosophy, the heaviest law, or the profoundest 
science—but, writing year-books, histories of the 
world, in amazingly numerous volumes, systems 
of metaphysics and physics, and all other sorts of 
books except entertaining ones, which their profes¬ 
sion may call for, or publishers may order; nay, 
so vast is their appetite for literary and philoso¬ 
phical labour, that they would undertake, if it were 
ordered, to write a history of the moon, or the 
remotest planet with all its tribes; and convince 
you that they had gone through mountains of ori¬ 
ginal documents, unknown to everybody else, for 
the purpose. No nation has so many systems of 
philosophy and so many histories of the world as 
Germany, written by its ponderous and perse¬ 
vering Professors. Nay, they can just as well 
write on subjects which they have never examined, 
as other people on those which they have sifted 
through and through. Thus, Professor Schlosser 
of Heidelberg, has written a History of the Eight¬ 
eenth Century, in which the literary history of 
that period in England was, to my positive know¬ 
ledge, written without ever reading the works of 
the authors on whom he most confidently pro¬ 
nounces judgment; yet, with such success, that 


26 


GERMAN 


the Allgemeine Zeitung triumphantly declared, 
that there never had been more than three real 
historians in the world—Heroditus, Tacitus, and 
Schlosser! 

Besides these unparalleled geniuses, who can 
write histories without reading for it, many others 
of these Professors are men of high and well-merit- 
ed fame for actual and laborious achievements; 
yet spite of this, and spite of all the domestic 
virtues, it is on them that w r e must charge the 
deplorable condition of the little University towns. 
Buried in their books and colossal labours, they 
are as much lost to the daily passing and exciting 
world as their great-grandfathers, who have already 
written, no doubt, an immense mass of history and 
philosophy in some other part of the universe. 
They are a species of married monks, who walk out 
of their cells, only to the lecture-room instead of to 
mass, and then into their little Kranzchen , or small 
social circle, to eat sausage and potato-salad of an 
evening. Meanwhile, the students sit by hundreds 
in the beer-house drinking and singing, because they 
have nothing else to do, and know no private 
family in the whole town. We have asked of some 
of these professors, why they don’t institute some 
sort of social meetings for those students—as, con¬ 
versaziones, concerts, or lectures of polite literature, 
at which they might meet the respectable inhabi¬ 
tants, and not be compelled to the sole refuge of 
the beer-shop; to which these gigantic professors, 















EXPERIENCES. 


27 


who could wield the histories of worlds, and turn 
the mind of man as completely inside out as their 
countryman Munchausen did the wolf, only reply 
with a shrug of the shoulder, that that does not 
belong to their Fach; that that is the regular, old- 
established way of things; they, themselves, went 
through their student days thus, and the young¬ 
sters need not to expect better things, nor need 
turn out better than their fathers. And truly, it 
must be confessed that, when these worthy men 
have lectured to the students all day, and have had 
in early mornings and late at night, histories of 
worlds and of unread literature to write, they have 
had enough to do. It is not here, therefore, that 
w r e mean to lay the corruption of this little town 
upon them. It is in a still tenderer point. 

Great in history and philosophy, great in the 
professor’s chair, great in the evening Kranzchen, 
over their potato-salad and sausages, the German 
professors resolve to be great also by their own 
firesides. To be the sole burning and shining light 
there, they put out that secondary and moon¬ 
light light, the mind of their wives. They despise 
and trample under foot the intellects of the women. 
In the true old pedant’s style, they decree that a 
woman is fit for nothing but to cook, nurse her 
children, and amuse her lord with the tittle-tattle 
of the little town. This feeling, which prevails 
(originating, however, in this source) more or less 
the wdiole country over, reigns in the University 


28 


GERMAN 


town in its full mastery. If any one wants to see 
a written proof of the true notion of a German 
professor on this subject, let him turn to the afore¬ 
said “ History of the Eighteenth Century,” by 
Schlosser, now translated into English, and note 
how he rates the English ladies for writing books, 
telling them that they ought to be in their kitchens 
or educating their children. Unfortunately, a Ger¬ 
man lady is, thanks to the learned professors, 
seldom fit either to w 7 rite a book or educate her 
children. Accomplished according to the profes¬ 
sors’ doctrine, that they shall be mere household 
slaves and entertainers of their lords, the women, 
especially in these towns, and in the very thickest 
atmosphere of this doctrine, dance, cook, read a 
mass of trashy novels, and fill up that wide space 
in their minds where solid information and elevated 
moral sentiments should reside, with the poorest 
gossip and the most frivolous pastimes. The con¬ 
sequences of this are most deplorable. The whole 
tone of the female mind is lowered to the last 
degree. To dance, to sit on the chief seats at the 
little concerts of the town, to run after, and carry 
about the petty cabals, and bickerings, and slanders 
of the day,—good heavens! what a pitiable world 
is the female world of a little German university 
town! In the very circles of their Krdnzchen , 
where the men and their wives meet, the men do 
not think the women worth any attention. They 
sit at separate tables; the ladies knitting, and 


EXPERIENCES. 


29 


abusing their servants, or their neighbours, the 
philosophers philosophizing. 

There is seldom any amount of a higher class 
of society resident in these little places, and pro¬ 
fessors’ wives, and lady-lodging-house-keepers, 
mingle in their companies, and give the tone to 
the place. They see and know nothing of the world 
at large. The standards of morals and opinions 
which guide the more-informed classes of mankind 
are unknown there. They have a standard of their 
own, and woe to the stranger that dares to call it 
in question. Good people of England, travel 
where you will, and settle where you will, but only 
avoid the little German University town. 


A writer in the Allgemeine Zeitung of last March, 
draws the following most living picture of the 
spirit and plagues of a little University town:— 

I know well what is said of the evils of the 
lesser Universities; and which, in the celebrated 
work of an excellent historian has been, with bitter 
emphasis, pronounced of them, as they appeared 
in the eighteenth century. I know how the spirit 
of caste in their Professors is seriously complained 
of, whose taste is effected by “ Kleinstadterei;” of 
the narrowness of their views from these causes; 
what is said of the nuisance of petty squabbles 
which here make their home; of the intrigues 
which, for want of greater objects, fling themselves 



30 


GERMAN 


on the lesser, and worry them to death. I know 
that the small Universities are reproached with 
being the birth-places of coteries which advance 
only their own members; that parties there find 
an auspicious field, in which, according to their 
nature, they form connexions and alliances, so 
that family interests cross those of the University; 
and the side on which a man is, and not his ability, 
promotes him; that the endeavour to attract 
hearers induces them often to strike into ways 
which do not befit the dignity of science; and that 
the danger is great that this petty spirit also seize 
on the students; yes, that this is actually the case, 
and that therefore on this account, it is desirable 
that the young, removed from these sordid influ¬ 
ences to larger Universities, may there accustom 
themselves to more important objects of attention, 
and to loftier sentiments.” 

It is true that the writer goes on to point out the 
peculiar dangers to students in large cities, and is 
not quite inclined to remove the Universities alto¬ 
gether from small places, as many are, because he 
deems the students, by zealous association to¬ 
gether, and their daily study, to be more removed 
from the evil influences than the inhabitants them¬ 
selves; but the picture which he has drawn he 
leaves as it is—a melancholy reality. 










EXPERIENCES. 


31 


CHAPTER IV. 


But as you are going to settle somewhere for a 
time, either in the little town or the large, let me 
consider how you shall best locate yourself there. 
How you shall, as much as possible, avoid the 
snares and annoyances that so many fall into, and 
secure all the advantages to be had. It is to be 
hoped that you have already in the place where you 
design to settle, friends or acquaintance who can 
give you the invaluable benefit of their experience. 
Happy are you if this be the case; but if it be not, 
as is but too common, then take mine. 

There are three modes of settling yourselves. 
One, in ready-furnished lodgings by the month or 
quarter; the second, in lodgings unfurnished, which 
must of course be for a longer period; the third, in 
your own regularly hired house by the year. The 
safest and best plan, if you are a stranger in the 
place and country, is to take lodgings for a quarter, 
by which means you give yourself time and opportu¬ 
nity to judge better of the suitableness of the town 
for your purposes; and if that answer your expecta- 



32 


GERMAN 


tion, of the best locality and lodgings in it. You 
by this time also acquire some knowledge of the 
language and people you are amongst. 

We will suppose you, then, just arrived at the 
place in which you propose to settle for some time. 
At your inn you will inquire for directions to suit¬ 
able lodgings. You will at once have a commis¬ 
sionaire sent to you, who will conduct you to all or 
any of such in the town as are usually let. But 
you must judge freely for yourself, and lay but 
little stress on the recommendations of your com¬ 
missionaire. Those men who hang about the doors 
of all continental hotels as guides, are useful, but 
often most artful and imposing rogues. Their 
object, like that of most other tradesmen, is to 
make all they can, especially out of the foreigner. 
They are, therefore, in the pay of the lodging- 
house-keepers, and where they are the highest 
feed, will crack off the lodgings of those people as 
the most esteemed by all the highest English fami¬ 
lies who have been there; the most genteel, the 
most comfortable, the most healthy, the most 
charming in summer, the most everything in fact— 
and the people of the house, who are perhaps the 
veriest knaves and sharpers in existence, as the 
epitome of all the virtues. Use, therefore, your 
eyes rather than your ears, and do not suddenly 
fix on any one. Go round, and give yourself a 
little trouble to see as many as you can; taking 
notes of the rent demanded in each case, of the 










EXPERIENCES. 


33 


quality of the furniture, and the situation and pro¬ 
spects of the house. In some cases the commis¬ 
sionaire is also feed by the landlord of the inn, if it 
be not a very busy time with him, to throw cleverly 
in a few hints that mav induce vou to stay longer 
at his house. You will find him praising the inn, 
and the landlord,—so charming, so clean, so rea¬ 
sonable, the house; the landlord so fond of the 
English, and therefore so desirous to make them 
comfortable, so low in his charges to them; really 
hardly knows, unless you meet with something 
very attractive, very reasonable, whether it be 
worth your while to move at all. And indeed, in 
some of these cases, this is the truth. In Ger¬ 
many the charge at inns is not so much above the 
charge of private houses for a suite of rooms, when 
you engage this suite for a time, as to make it at 
all a pressing matter; and the charge for eating, 
especially for dinner, is so moderate, being about 
twenty-pence for a splendid dinner and half-a- 
bottle of wine, that many people, especially where 
there is not a large family, regularly go and dine 
at the table-d’hote of an hotel. Many families 
also take up their quarters at these' hotels for 
years. Whether this will suit you, you will be 
able to judge when you have seen the best lodgings 

and learnt the demand for them. But what vou 

%! 

have in this case to do, is to be on your guard 
with the commissionaire. If he praise the inn 
there is a danger that he is well feed by the land- 

D 


34 


GERMAN 


lord, and may not shew you the most likely 
lodgings. We have known instances where people 
have taken a commissionaire round a whole town, 
and have not been able to find a single place fit to 
put their heads in, till they have set off alone, 
and by inquiries at some of the shops, where the 
people generally speak English, especially at a book¬ 
seller’s shop, they have immediately been directed to 
plenty. As a safeguard against the concealment of 
lodgings you ought to know, too, that in the little 
local newspaper or papers, which every town has, 
you will find the greater number of the lodgings 
pretty frequently advertised. You should see this 
every morning. Whether, then, the commissionaire 
praise highly his landlord, or a private lodging- 
house-keeper, listen to him with all proper cau¬ 
tion. The greatest scoundrels, those who mean 
to fleece the most unsparingly, find it money well 
bestowed to fee the commissionaires most extrava¬ 
gantly, and you are directly led unto these sharpers, 
some of them of the most rapacious grade of their 
race. Lodging-house keepers have a bad reputa¬ 
tion all the world over. Whether this class of 
people have a particular turn for sharping which 
leads them to this particular line, or whether the 
many queer customers which fall into their hands 
make them so, I know not ; but all who have ever 
lived in lodgings know what the genus is, and it is 
enough to say that no lodging-house people can be 
worse than some of the German ones. They have 


EXPERIENCES. 


35 


the advantage over their tenants, that these gene¬ 
rally come there strangers, not only to the country 
and the people, but to its very difficult language, 
which few adults are ever able properly to acquire, 
and moreover, to the additional difficulty in which 
they shroud their language, of its written character. 
Here they have ample means of imposition, and 
they make good use of it; and they have this other 
advantage, that however notorious may be their 
characters, not a syllable of this will ever be whis¬ 
pered to the unsuspicious stranger. In the first 
place the commissionaires are bribed not to do it. 
In the second place it is the interest of too many 
other people for any stranger to receive a warning. 
The shop-keepers will, of course, say nothing, 
because they wish you to settle and be customers, 
and many of them hope to fleece you well too. 
Even if you have letters to German families, they 
will not breathe a word. It is not their business; 
and it is a part of German caution not to offend 
their townsmen, especially the knavish, who may 
do them mischief. Beyond all this it is a piece of 
German policy to hush up all sorts of crime and 
offences. We publish in our newspapers all our 
police transactions, all our murders and crimes of 
every sort, but you will never find those in the 
German papers. Comparing the public papers of 
France and England with those of Germany, you 
would imagine that the two former countries were 
the most murderous, thievish, criminal people on 


36 


GERMAN 


the face of the earth, the latter the most nnprece¬ 
dent^ moral. It is only the statistics which set 
the matter right. You often witness an atrocious 
deed, which would fill all our newspapers from one 
end of the country to the other, but you look in 
vain for an account of it in the journals of the place. 
An English gentleman one summer night last year, 
about eleven o’clock, was walking in the castle 
gardens to enjoy the splendid moonlight, and the 
view of the fine castle, and of the town and sur¬ 
rounding mountains, when he was attacked with a 
view to his robbery by a set of fellows with great 
sticks. He made a stout resistance; but was stunned, 
and falling, rolled down a hill behind him. He 
called loudly for help; but no help was at hand. 
His cries, however, alarmed the villains, and they 
decamped. The young man was so much bruised 
and injured that it was some time before he could 
recover power to arise and get down to the town, 
where he early in the morning sent for a German 
gentleman, who has always shewn a bold friendship 
to the English very uncommon there. This gen¬ 
tleman accompanied the young Englishman to the 
Police Office, and called on the chief officer to 
make search for the villains. The Englishman 
said he would also immediately draw up a hand¬ 
bill describing them, and offer a reward for their 
apprehension, and have the handbills stuck up all 
over the city. This the City Director most promptly 
and decidedly forbade. Any private inquiry by 


EXPERIENCES. 


37 


the police should be made, but such public an¬ 
nouncement of the deed was contrary to all their 
practice. No man can be more disposed to do 
strangers justice than this gentleman, the Stadt 
Director. I have had several occasions to appeal 
to him, and he did me immediate and the most 
impartial justice, but publicity is totally opposed to 
their system. Of course the rogues escaped. 

These circumstances give therefore great scope 
to the impositions of the lodging-house keepers, 
and others. They trust to their customers being 
migratory personages. They come and go in suc¬ 
cession, without any communication with each 
other. The victim who has been shorn goes away 
with his indignant wrath, and a new and most 
unsuspicious victim steps into his place. The one 
can leave no history of his wrongs, and the other 
receive no warning. In this, as in many another 
particular, to our country people, and especially to 
ladies, how invaluable is the experience of a re¬ 
spectable English family who has been for some 
time resident in the place. Where you can have 
the advice of such a family, make bold and seek it, 
and you will seldom seek it in vain, for after all you 
will find 

Na folk like ye’r ain folk. 

You will find that “ blood is thicker than water ” 
still in this case. You will find the Englishman, 
be where he will, never afraid of speaking his 


38 


GERMAN 


mind, and if you fall into perplexity he is still the 
friend in need. The German in general will stick 
by his “ blood ” and kith and kin, and you will get 
no glimpse of the truth, no bold assistance, except 
in those few shining exceptions to which I have 
already alluded; from those noble minds, the salt 
of the earth, of which I can point to some indivi¬ 
dual, but rare examples in Germany. 

When you do not happen to have the advantage 
of the advice of some excellent family of your own 
country, take that of the banker who has been 
recommended to you, whose interest it is to put 
you right, and who generally belongs to the best 
class of people. Even then, in the first instance, 
prefer a mere quarter’s engagement, and whether 
for that or for a longer period, see that your agree¬ 
ment be made out in English as well as German, 
if you are not well acquainted with the latter lan¬ 
guage. Your banker will assist you in this, and it 
is most important. These agreements are usually 
made out not only in German but in the written 
German character, which is one mystery upon 
another; and if you do not take care, you will pro¬ 
bably find by the time that you begin to read the 
language some strange conditions in it dawning 
upon you. 

If possible, agree expressly for a fixed sum, exclu¬ 
sive of anything more for cleaning, white washing, 
etc., for anything except actual damage done. The 
Germans have the singular law, if you do not cove- 























EXPERIENCES. 


39 


nant to the contrary, that on going out of furnished 
lodgings, even after a mere quarter’s tenancy, you 
shall not only wash all floors and such matters, but 
you shall whitewash all the ceilings, or pay a tarif 
price of forty-five kreutzers, that is, one and three 
pence, each. The charge for the washings and 
whitewashings are a source of continual dispute on 
going out of German lodgings. If you are leaving 
the place the demands are often enormous on this 
head, and of damages, trusting to your not having 
time or inclination to settle the matter before the 
police. Other landlords bring in great bills at the 
last moment for marketing, and doing this and that 
for you, and for damages to furniture, perhaps more 
than the furniture is worth. I have known fami¬ 
lies thrown into the greatest perplexity by a mon¬ 
strous bill being brought in at the very moment 
they would set out on their journey home, and be¬ 
lieved that they had paid every thing. In one case 
the master of the familv was s;one on before, and 
the ladies, who had to be at the packet at a given 
hour, were obliged to pay the villanous demand, 
or they would have been stopped by the police till 
the case had been examined. 

To avoid this there is an excellent means, and 
indeed a means of accommodation which many 
families do not learn till they have suffered much 
inconvenience. There are suites of rooms, as well 
as entire houses, to be let unfurnished, and there are 
furniture-brokers who will furnish you your rooms, 


40 


GERMA N 


or a house, at a few days’ notice. If you are in¬ 
tending to spend several years in a place, this is 
every way the best arrangement. You not only 
often get far better rooms at a cheaper rate, but 
you get new furniture of modern and handsome 
style. In ready furnished rooms the furniture is 
often very slight, having been made by contract at 
a cheap rate, and is continually tumbling to pieces, 
and has to be repaired at your expense. The new 
wants no repairs, the broker seldom demands half 
so much if any damage is really done as the regular 
lodging-house people, for their rickety articles, and 
the new is usually really at a less rate of charge. 
Whatever be the rent of the rooms, the furniture 
should cost you for the first year something less 
than that rent; and for every succeeding year 
a very large reduction, something like twenty per 
cent., is made by the broker in his charges, till in a 
few years the rent of the furniture is little more 
than nominal. It is most important to know this, 
for you often see rooms that you would extremely 
like if you knew that you could thus expeditiously 
and advantageously furnish them. There was a 
time at Heidelberg when I would have sacrificed 
almost anything to have escaped out of my lodg¬ 
ings, finding that I “ had gone down to Jericho and 
fallen among thieves,” but I could find no furnished 
house or rooms that would accommodate all my 
family, and I was not aware of this facilitv, or I 
could have had twenty suitable houses. I after- 













EXPERIENCES. 


41 


wards made the discovery and the change, to my 
infinite satisfaction. A Mr. Kriidelbach there fur¬ 
nished my rooms, ten in number, at two days’ 
notice, in the handsomest manner, with wholly new 
furniture; and I never knew a man more honest, 
honourable, or obliging in all his transactions. 

If you do not take an entire house, but a story, as 
is more customary, and in some respects in a foreign 
country, more satisfactory, especially in point of 
security, and an exemption from all cares about 
taxes, external repairs, and other demands, where 
you are exposed to most imposition, choose an 
upper one. If the apartments are good, the very 
uppermost; especially where it will give, as is often 
the case, a fine prospect. You must remember that 
the Germans are a great waltzing people, and in 
winter have very frequently dancing parties. These, 
if you do not take care to be above them, will, of 
course, be just over your heads; and once having 
experienced one winter of such leaping and thun¬ 
dering over your beds and your evening circles, 
you will never wish to repeat the trial. Besides, 
on the common staircases of German houses you 
are liable to the visits of all sorts of vagabonds, 
who, if you inquire their business, have always 
been, or are going to the upper story. When you 
have the upper story, they are left without an 
excuse. 


42 


GERMAN 


CHAPTER Y. 


When you have selected your lodgings you have 
still your servants and your tradesmen to select, no 
trifling matter in a foreign country, of whose lan¬ 
guage you are quite ignorant. These your landlord 
or landlady will speedily recommend; and by all 
these, as fresh English, you will be well fleeced, do 
what you will. The servants who speak English 
are a class who have learned it on purpose to live 
with the English, and are generally arrant thieves. 
They expect English wages, and have a per centage 
on all the bills they pay for you. Your cook rises 
at five o’clock in the morning, and goes to market. 
She buys the w T orst articles there, and charges you 
something more than for the best. She has often 
her kitchen below while your rooms are above, 
and you have no control over her actions, or a 
staircase serves her purpose. She and the other 
servants, who are commonly in league, have their 
connexions, who expect a good harvest out of 
the rich English, and are always coming and 
going with their covered baskets. If you do not 
take good heed, and it is almost impossible to have 












EXPERIENCES. 


43 


sufficient precaution, unless your wife do as the 
German ladies do, wear a great bunch of keys 
at her apron strings, lock every thing up, and get 
up at five o’clock too; without this your stores of 
all kinds will flow freely out of your house, and 
your very wood for fuel will be sold by these rapa¬ 
cious servants. You are, in fact, in the hands of 
the Philistines, and you must get rid of them as fast 
as you can. The same is the case with the trades¬ 
men. Your landlord will endeavour to keep you 
within a certain circle of them, who will charge 
you twenty or thirty per cent, more than is charged 
to German families. Washing will be charged 
the same. It is useless to talk to your landlord or 
landlady, they will protest that they are paying 
the same as you, while the fact is they are receiving 
from these tradesmen a good premium on your 
custom. 

The remedy is simple. You must boldly and 
coolly walk through the lines drawn around you. 
Betake yourselves to some of your countrymen 
who have lived long and learned much; if such 
there be; and avail yourselves of their experience. 
If there be not such, it is not of the least use to 
apply to any Germans, however friendly they may 
be, you will get no information from them which 
may reduce the profits of their townspeople. The 
best thing that you can do is to dismiss your 
English-speaking servants, and throw yourselves on 
some simple maiden who has never lived with the 


44 


GERMAN 


English, nor knows a word of the language. A 
few words of German will enable you to make her 
understand you, and you will find that she will 
most probably turn out a most faithful and affec¬ 
tionate creature, who will not only serve you for a 
very small sum (four or five pounds a year) if you 
wish it, but will make all your household pur¬ 
chases at a rate which will astonish you. You 
may, if you please, dismiss your cook, for you can 
have vour dinner sent home from an hotel, or 
cooking-house, as is very common, and that of a 
much better quality, and at a much cheaper rate 
than can be got up in your own house. Yet, with 
the hotel, or the cook sending in your dinner, you 
must make a wise bargain, or you will probably 
pay cent, percent, more than the Germans do. If 
you get a good honest German housemaid, she 
will manage this. The dinner is reckoned by por¬ 
tions, each portion about sufficient for two persons. 
So many portions then of so many courses, at 
such a price per portion; and you have a daily 
good dinner, of which you know the cost to a 
penny. 

Wood for fuel is an important article, which 
strangers are often much imposed upon in. You 
should lay in this in August or September, for 
winter, or if you buy in the winter you will pay 
often enormously for it. Buy this for yourself in 
the wood market. There are public places in every 
town where wood for fuel is stacked, and the price 











EXPERIENCES. 


46 


is chalked upon it. There can therefore be no 
deception in the price if you go and see this your¬ 
self, for at that price it is sold to the natives. The 
highest prized is generally the cheapest in the 
end, for it is the solid wood of the bole of the trees. 
Beech is the best, and most used. In various 
parts of Germany the price is various. But in 
most the price is yearly rising, in consequence of 
the growth of the forests not keeping pace with the 
demand of the increasing population, though one- 
third of the whole country is covered with them. 
In Heidelberg, the klafler or measure was gene¬ 
rally about thirteen florins, or about a guinea. 
Your fuel in the whole Rhine country costs you, 
in fact, about as much as coal in London. 

Before leaving a town, take care to have an 
account of every thing you owe, sent in at least a 
month before the time of your real departure; for 
nothing is more common than, at the last minute, 
to have a shower of fictitious, or already paid bills 
poured in, which, if your papers be packed up, 
or your passage taken, may occasion you much 
trouble. If you want anything from shoemakers, 
tailors, or such people, fix the time for your de¬ 
parture with them, at least a month before the 
actual time, for Germans are the most slow people 
in existence; and, though they will not come in 
with their articles till the last minute, they are 
sure to come then, to your excessive inconvenience. 
You will have, just as you are about to issue forth 


46 


GERMAN 


t.o the carriage or the railroad, your house besieged 
with these people, with shoes, or coats, and the 
bills for these, which you have no time to examine 
as to their correctness. Your luggage is packed 
and sent on, and you have now to send out and 
buy new boxes, and are thrown into the utmost 
perplexity. Strange as this may appear, I have 
witnessed it so often, and seen so much of incon¬ 
venience, loss of trains, and steam packets, etc., 
and so much imposition and worry, that there is 
nothing on which I would lay so much stress, as 
the complete arrangement of these matters a month 
before your exit. 

A witty friend of ours used to say, if you want 
to have anything done in Germany immediately , 
you must order it six months beforehand , Locke 
the philosopher, who was some time in that coun¬ 
try, says, that if you ordered a coat there for your 
wedding, you would probably have it sent in, in 
time for the christening of your first child. But 
if you happened to offend your tailor, and all 
Germans are most sensitive, you would not get it 
quite so soon as Locke imagines. A German is, 
of all men, the most sensitive; and, as is the case 
with people who are a censor-ridden and police- 
ridden people, and habituated, by a despotic go¬ 
vernment, to conceal their sentiments, they do not 
speak out, but let their wrath, unknown to you, 
burn and gather within to a desperate heat. A 
common German takes fire at a trifle, and never 











EXPERIENCES. 


47 


forgives the offence. The very bauers, or country 
fellows, when they quarrel with students, or people 
of a more refined class, take a particular pleasure 
in stamping on their faces. Of this trait, resulting 
in a great measure from the long operating effects 
of a silencing government, I shall have to speak in 
another part of this volume; but I may here give 
an instance of slowness in a tradesman, which must 
be very amusing to a Londoner, and which beats 
Locke’s case all to nothing. 

During the three years that w r e resided in Hei¬ 
delberg, I bought, frequently, a great quantity of 
books from one Mohr. The father, who has always 
borne an honourable character amongst the trade 
houses, had given over his business to his son, 
who, to all the old-fashioned slowness of the old 
school, added the sullen closeness, and want of 
truth of too many of the present generation. Two 
years before I left, I purchased of this man an 
edition of Goethe in forty volumes; these he 
proposed to get bound, making that part of his 
business. When the books were sent home, it was 
found that nearly half of them were totally spoiled 
by the binder, having scattered his size amongst 
the leaves, so as to stick scores of leaves together, 
which, if you attempted to open, tore out whole 
words and patches of words. This being pointed 
out to him, he, of course, consented to replace 
the defective volumes which were sent to him for 
the purpose. Months however went on, and the 



48 


GERMAN 


volumes never were supplied. When asked for, 
they were always on the point of coming. In a 
year , insisting very strenuously on having them, they 
came; but what was our astonishment to find, that, 
instead of new and perfect volumes, the man 
had actually been at the trouble (though the loss 
was really that of the hinder, and not his) to go 
through the almost innumerable leaves—to tear all 
asunder—and to fill in the torn-out words labori¬ 
ously with a pen! The ink, as might have been 
expected had run, and instead of words, we had 
now so many hideous blots! The amusement this 
gave us may be conceived. We shewed the vol¬ 
umes to our English friends, who too were very 
merry over this odd circumstance, and thought 
the edition quite worth bringing to England as a 
curiosity. As we, however, preferred a perfect 
copy, I returned these oddly-patched volumes— 
pointed out to Mohr, that such a fact would be 
very amusing to a London bookseller, and that 
I must have new’ ones. The Dumm-Kopf , as such 
fellow' is expressively called in his own language, 
blushed like a great booby of a boy, and promised 
most readily to replace them wdth new ones. An¬ 
other half year, however, went on; they were as 
usual, always coming, but never came. It was 
then suggested to us by some of his own country¬ 
men, that Mohr probably felt himself internally 
i( beleidigt,” or offended, by my amusement at the 
patchwork of the books, and never meant to send 













EXPERIENCES. 


49 


the new ones at all. On this I proposed the im¬ 
mediate sending of them in ; bat, spite of the most 
ready promises, a month only remained for my 
stay, and they had not made their appearance. I 
then assured Mohr, that nothing was so annoying 
to me as to have mv affairs unsettled at the last 
moment, and that they must be sent instantly 
home. Up to the day before I left town they 
came not, and then came the old patched volumes 
again, with a note, that the time was so short that 
he could not get the new ones; if I could allow 
him ten days more, he thought he could have them 
from Leipsic ! The man had had them two years 
to rectify, and he wanted only ten days more ! 

But he knew very well that I had now not ten 
hours to give him. My boxes, which were wait¬ 
ing for these books, were obliged to be dispatched. 
I therefore sent the whole edition back to him, and 
requested he would return the money. No answer. 
I then took a German gentleman, who had seen 
the volumes, and declared that no Jew would offer 
such on a bookstall, and applied to the Burger- 
meister for redress. The Biirgermeister very in¬ 
dignantly said— 

“ Send the man his books back.” 

u They are sent.” 

“ Then don’t pay him.” 

“ Unfortunately he is paid.” 

“Then employ an advocate; go to the Amt- 

E 


60 


GERMAN 


mann, and he will compel him to refund the cash, 
and pay the costs, and that speedily.” 

“ How speedily?” 

“ In a fortnight.” 
u But I go to-morrow !” 

The answer was the expressive shrug of the 
shoulder, and there this singular transaction ended. 









EXPERIENCES. 


51 


CHAPTER VI. 


The chapters on settling in German lodgings have 
somewhat stretched themselves beyond my inten¬ 
tion, but to those who have to make the experi¬ 
ment, not beyond their importance. There is not 
a step in your foreign sojourn where so much of 
the comfort or discomfort of your whole residence 
depends on the knowledge you possess, and the 
prudence with which you act, as this. The conse¬ 
quences of a false step may pursue and cross you 
with annoyance to the last day of your abode in 
the same place. If it be a small place, it will 
certainly do it. You are foreigners; you are 
English; you are amongst a people who are up in 
arms against any evasion of their impositions; and 
though you may think that to resist the knavery 
of a lodging-house keeper is both proper and can 
do you no harm with sensible people, you do not 
recollect that you are living in society constituted 
very differently to your own; and offend but one 
of the little ones, and you will find annoyances 
start up where you little expect it. 

Above all, steer clear of the lady or gentleman 



52 


GERMAN 


lodging-house keeper. In my “ Rural and Social 
Life of Germany,” I have described this class. 
They profess, because people of fortune and rank 
often let a story of their houses, to belong to this 
class—to let a story, not from necessity, or as a 
trade, but because it is the custom. These people 
will expect to be of your acquaintance. They will 
tell you that they never let their rooms except on 
that condition. When you hear this, fly that house; 
let no advantages of agreeable rooms, charming 
situation, or any other attraction, seduce you into 
the fatal error of taking apartments in such a house. 
It will be very likely that these people do mix with 
what is called the better society if it be a small 
town, for the best is there but of an amphibious 
order; but for that very reason fly the people and 
their house. They are all the more capable of 
becoming your torment. If you admit their ad¬ 
vances you will soon find that you are in a regular 
spider’s web, whose designs, thick as the fly-devour¬ 
ing monster’s threads, gather about you; if you refuse 
them, expect their vengeance. They will find means 
to raise the whole little town against you, and 
make the place too hot for you. This is another 
reason to avoid small towns, and the one all-suffi¬ 
cient one to avoid the lady or yentleman lodging- 
house keeper. Out of a thousand such histories 
which occur, I will here as a general warning relate 
one which occurred to ourselves. 

On going to Heidelberg it w T as our ill fortune to 


EXPERIENCES. 


53 


engage a suite of rooms in the house of a woman 
of this class. She was a widow who was notorious 
for her everlasting intrigues to marry off’ her large 
family. She was a perfect specimen of her class; 
scheming, false, without truth or principle, but at 
the same time never seeing to the end of her plans 
—that is, never seeing the certain consequences of 
them. Her character was well known; but such 
also is the character of the place, where no sense of 
right and wrong, no consciousness of the true 
beauty and purity of moral principle and high 
motive seem really to exist, that she was received 
to certain circles there. But a fortnight before our 
arrival a most respectable English family had sud¬ 
denly quitted the house on discovering the character 
of the landlady, and deposited a quarter’s rent with 
the Director of the Police as a payment for a few 
weeks residence; the landlady herself demanding 
the amount for a whole half year. This, like in¬ 
nocent strangers in all such cases, we knew nothing 
of; but we soon saw enough to put us on our guard, 
and probably should have got out of her house 
pretty well, had not some young people come to 
visit us from England, who made themselves too 
familiar with this family. The consequence was 
that a son and daughter of the landlady very soon 
took wing to England after these young people; 
and a letter from a young German who was in the 
secret, warned us to put the parents of the young 
people on their guard, as it was, according to him, 


54 


GERMAN 


nothing: less than a matrimonial scheme of the old 
Frau’s. The pranks which the two young matri¬ 
monial emissaries played off in England make no 
part of the present relation, enough that their plans 
failed. But scarcely were they arrived in England 
when the lady at whose house they had taken up 
their quarters was in want of a housemaid. The 
German young lady, the daughter of our scheming 
landlady, at once offered to supply her with a Ger¬ 
man maid. A note was according sent to a young 
maid servant from Heidelberg living with a lady in 
Kensington, who had formerly lived in Heidelberg, 
and had brought this most trusty girl with her. 
The note was to inform this girl that she must go 
to this young lady, whom we will for the sake of 
perspicuity, term Miss Thekla, as she had news for 
her from her mother. The poor girl accordingly 
went in eager haste, but was astounded at the in¬ 
formation which Miss Thekla gave her, that her (the 
girl’s) mother, had desired her to take her at once from 
the lady she lived with, and place her in this family. 
It was in vain that the poor girl protested that she 
could not, dared not, and would not consent to 
leave the lady to whom she had for years been 
attached, who had paid her passage, and was like a 
mother to her; Miss Thekla replied, she had a pe¬ 
remptory order from her mother, to put her in this 
family or take her back to Heidelberg. The girl 
wept, and wondered that her mother could do so, but 
refused to obey. Miss Thekla refused to allow her 



EXPERIENCES. 


55 


to depart, but said her things should be instantly- 
sent for. The poor girl, distracted and alarmed, 
and surrounded by the strange family, who, no 
doubt, believed Miss Thelda had an order and 
sufficient reason to remove the girl thus abruptly, 
with earnest importunity at length promised, if 
they would allow her to fetch her things, to return 
the next day. Once out of the house she flew back 
to her mistress full of the wondrous tale. The 
mistress, full of indignation, but well aware of the 
character of Miss Thekla and her family, instantly 
wrote to the poor girl’s mother, and by due course 
of post received the answer that the whole was an 
entire fiction of Miss Thekla’s, and that not a 
shadow of any such commission had been given to 
her. Of course the lady soon communicated this 
singular transaction in letters to her lady-acquaint¬ 
ance in Heidelberg, where it speedily reached the 
ears of the family of my landlady from all sides. 
Stung to distraction with this exposure, she looked 
round for revenge. 

Now it so happened that a younger sister of this 
poor servant girl lived as a younger nursemaid in 
our service, in the very house of Miss Thekla’s 
mother! and on her she resolved to let fall the fury 
of her vengeance. These affairs had taken place 
during a journey we had made into some distant 
parts of Germany, and immediately on our return 
we were surprised at the landlady gravely insisting 
that this poor girl should leave our service and the 


56 


GERMAN 


house, on the plea that during our absence she had 
got the worst of acquaintance, and was a character 
disgraceful to keep. 

Our astonishment may be imagined, for the poor 
girl, who was but about fifteen, had always been 
most sober and orderly. On calling for the house¬ 
keeper, who had had the whole care of the family 
in our absence, we learned that nothing could have, 
possibly been more satisfactory than the conduct 
of this poor girl during the whole time, or more 
harassing and unprincipled than that of the old 
landlady. The girl, on being questioned as to the 
cause of the landlady’s hostility to her, begged 
leave to go to her mother’s for a few minutes, who 
lived just by, and returned with two letters, one 
from her sister in England, and the other from her 
sister’s mistress, detailing the attempt to inveigle 
away the elder sister, as here related. 

This was a most amazing revelation of wicked¬ 
ness; and the remorseless revenge, which did not 
hesitate to sacrifice the innocent child in our ser¬ 
vice to the disgrace occasioned by the failure of so 
base and wild an attempt on the elder sister, was so 
unexampled as to fill us with horror. The malice 
was the more diabolical, because the characters 
of all servants are deposited at the police-office, in 
a book which people inspect before they will engage 
a servant; and had this poor girl' been dismissed 
by us on such a charge, her character was lost for 
ever; there was nothing but ruin before her. 


EXPERIENCES. 


57 


We bade the poor girl be quite at ease on this 
score; and assured the wicked landlady that we 
were quite satisfied of her innocence, and should 
on no account part with her. But this woman, 
whose malice knew no bounds, and whose schemes 
were as numerous as they were shallow, determined 
not to be baffled of her revenge. She soon after 
came to Mrs. Howitt with a grave face, to inform 
her that she had had an anonymous letter sent to 
her, saying that if we did not part with this girl 
our windows should be broken. Mrs. Howitt, who 
felt at once that this Avas a continuation of the base 
plan, requested to see the letter; but the old Frau 
told her that she had handed it to a lady in the 
city (Avhom she imprudently named), Avhose son 
was in the police, and might possibly make out the 
hand. Of course this tale was treated with the 
proper contempt; but as we gave no sign of any 
intention to dismiss the girl, in about ten days 
afterwards, as Ave sate round the stove on a splen¬ 
did moonlight night, the loAver range of AvindoAvs 
Avas rapidly dashed in. I rushed to the Avindows 
nearest, but the smashing of glass Avas now beyond 
the portico of the front door. I rushed through 
the rooms in that direction, but Avas too late—not 
a soul Avas to be seen. The breakage had ceased, 
and the moonlight Avas bright as day; yet, strange 
to say, not a soul could be seen running from the 
house, up or down the road, which was quite 
sti'aight. It must be some one then in the house, 


58 


GERMAN 


or under the portico. I ran out of the room, to go 
down to the front door, and who should I encounter 
on the stairs but—the old landlady! Now it was 
remarkable, that this old dame was commonly in 
bed at nine o’clock of an evening, but here, at half¬ 
past eleven, she was up. It did not fail to strike 
me oddly. Her agitation appeared great. Not 
another person within or without was to be seen. 
This was on a Saturday night. “If the old lady 
knows nothing of this,” we said, “she will come 
in to-morrow on the subject.” But she did not 
come; and on the Monday morning I went to her 
breakfast-room, and begged to know what she pro¬ 
posed to do in the case. She would do nothing. 
I therefore assured her that I would have the case 
sought into by the police, and demanded the anony¬ 
mous letter to lay before the Director. She replied, 
she had destroyed it. 

On stating the facts to the Director of Police, 
he immediately, on the mention of this anonymous 
letter, requested to see it, and when he heard the 
old lady’s statement, that she had destroyed it, 
shook his head. I then proceeded to the lady in 
whose hands she said it had been: the lady and her 
son, one of the police, never had heard of such a 
letter! I returned, and stated these facts to the 
landlady, and charged her, point blank, with having 
invented the whole story of this letter, and to my 
unspeakable astonishment, she coolly confessed it !— 
confessed that she was determined to drive this 












EXPERIENCES. 


59 


girl out of the house at any rate, and had hit on 
this scheme! nor did she seem in the smallest 
degree conscious of its infamy. 

I communicated this discovery to the Director 
of Police, and added, “ But then, who broke the 
■windows ? and who must pay for them ?” 

“My dear sir,” said the Director, smiling, “there 
is no doubt but that the good woman broke the 
windows herself, and we will take care that she 
pay for them. For how do these things hang 
together? If there had been a letter threatening 
to break the wdndows, and they were accordingly 
broken—who broke them ? Why, the writer, or 
his accomplices. But if a person says that he has 
received a letter containing such a threat, and it 
turn out that there never was such a letter , and yet 
the threat is fulfilled—who did it then ? The 
person, of course, who said there was such a letter, 
and such a threat! Make yourself quite easy—the 
landlady shall pay for the breaking of her own 
windows;—we will send a gens-d’arme to walk 
before your house every night to protect your 
family, and all I have to say is, get out of this 
house as fast as you can.” It is hardly necessary 
to say, that we took the w r orthy Director’s advice 
with all possible speed. 

Before closing these remarks, for the guidance 
of those intending to pass some time in Germany, 
I may answer a question which has been often put 
to me. “If small University towns are so much 


60 


GERMAN 


to be avoided, was Heidelberg an exception, that 
you spent so much time there?” On the contrary, 
Heidelberg is perhaps the most wretched, as to 
the general tone and quality of its society, of all 
the little University towns. A celebrated German 
wrote to me sometime after I went there, saying, 
You certainly had not inquired into the character 
of that little city before you went there, or you 
would certainly not have gone; for it is, of all the 
University towns, the most notorious for its frivol- 
ity, conceit, and impertinence to strangers.” It 
must be confessed, that this character is but too 
true. I have met with a good many English of 
high character who have spent some time in that 
place, but scarcely with an exception have they left 
it wdtli disappointment and disgust. Few can 
record much cordial kindness; and one lady of 
distinction, wdio was detained there in painful cir¬ 
cumstances, asserted, that nowhere in her life had 
she experienced so much unkindness. I must 
confess that the treatment of ladies there (who go, 
as is frequently the case, to the continent with their 
daughters to finish their education, without their 
husbands, who are detained in England by official 
or other concerns,) has often filled me with the 
greatest indignation; the most prying, impertinent 
conduct being practised towards them, and the 
most disgraceful rumours regarding them. 

My object in selecting Heidelberg for a tempo¬ 
rary residence, was to combine, with the education 













EXPERIENCES. 


61 


of my children, rest and relaxation with a conve¬ 
nient position, whence I could visit any other part 
of Germany—these objects were tolerably answered. 
The country round, with its lovely river — its 
Charming valleys—its wide and open forests, was 
to me a perpetual enjoyment. I had my own 
family with me, sufficient society for me, if there 
were none else; from the garden of my own house 
I could plunge at once into the deepest solitude of 
woods and mountains; my children were progress¬ 
ing satisfactorily with their education; and the 
easy quiet of life, gave a great charm to my 
sojourn. It is true, that, as w r e extended our 
survey of the different cities of Germany? we saw 
those superior advantages which I have pointed 
out in the preceding chapters. But in the mean 
time, a most valued circle of a few intellectual and 
attached English friends had gathered around us 
there, and the prospect of our returning to our 
own country presenting itself stronger and stronger, 
we declined making the removal of a large family, 
to the city we should have preferred. It is true, 
that, like others, we were soon wearied of the 
empty frivolity of the little place, and were not 
allowed to escape our share of “ the imperti¬ 
nence to strangers; 7 ’ but to us these were of little 
consequence. In the boundless refreshments of 
nature, and the society of our few English friends, 
we had all that we wanted; and knowing experi¬ 
mentally the feelings of a certain lady, a native of 



62 


GERMAN 


the place—who, sitting one fine summer day in the 
arbour of a garden on one of the hill sides, over¬ 
looking the town and valley, could not help 
exclaiming, “O mein Gott! warum hast du ein 
solches folk in solchem paradies gesetzt!” O my 
God, why hast thou placed such a people in such 
a paradise! we avoided the people, and loved the 
paradise. The people and their “impertinences” 
fall away from recollection; but the days spent at 
that “ little sink of inquity,” as an English resi¬ 
dent indignantly styled it, will yet always remain a 
delightful memory. How many wide rambles in 
those deep woods; how many wide views over 
plain and forest, and hundreds of scattered villages ; 
how many sw r eet spots—as Neckersteinach, Schwetz- 
engen, Weinheim, the Stift Mill, the Wolfsbrunnen, 
the Bierhalterhof, the Haardt Forest, etc., are sanc¬ 
tified by summer days of gladness, and bright and 
affectionate spirits. How many pleasant evenings 
w r ere there, when the little gossiping place had 
become to us no more than a place of shops for 
the procurance of the creature - comforts, but 
whence the elect few would step in, and tea, music, 
and merriment, made a world of their own. 

But our case w T as a peculiar one,—one in a 
thousand; and those incidental circumstances which 
occurred to us, both in regard to friends and facilities 
of education, are amongst the rarities of such a place; 
they are not its daily possessions; and let the intel¬ 
lectual, or those who require first-rate masters, 



EXPERIENCES. 


63 


look well before they settle down in such a place, 
“ where offences will come/’ but the advantage may 
not come; while they are so richly offered to them 
in the capitals. Should any circumstances, however, 
induce any families to reside awhile there, they will 
find in Mr. Fries, the banker, the hospitable and 
worthy octogenarian, and in Messrs. Zimmerns, 
also bankers and drapers, the best and most zealous 
advisers in all difficulties, and the Director of 
Police aways ready to give any protection, in the 
promptest and most active manner, to the English. 



64 


GERMAN 


CHAPTER VII. 


The last chapter which I shall address to such 
of my countrymen as are intending to visit Ger¬ 
many shall be on the subject of Education. This is 
the most important of all objects, and it is the one, 
if they go prudently about it, which will be crowned 
with the greatest success. In point of economy, 
alone, it may almost be said to be the sole economy, 
which, for its own sake, is sufficiently great to 
reward you for a long absence from your native 
land. In point of completeness it is equally excel¬ 
lent. The Germans are not only a very systematic, 
but plodding and persevering people; and they 
certainly do most admirably economise time, and 
by “ stroke upon stroke, and precept upon pre¬ 
cept,” drill into your children a very thorough and 
practical acquaintance with a surprisingly ample 
circle of knowledge. Languages, old and new, 
music and singing, stand but as the palisadoes 
round a great enclosure of scholastic acquirements, 
which the unfortunate expenses of our own country 
actually put it out of the power of the mass of 
parents to confer here on their children. The cost 













EXPERIENCES. 


65 


of a really good education of the children of a tole¬ 
rably large family in England equals all other 
costs of living. As a mere matter of ordinary 
economy, where education is not wanted, families 
are and will be often disappointed in Germany, 
especially in Prussia and the Rhine country. The 
sum total of your expenditure there will be about 
twenty or five-and-twenty per cent, less than in 
London or its immediate neighbourhood; but will 
be very little different to what it would be in one 
of our own cheaper counties. In many of these, 
in fact, if you chose to live in the same simple way, 
you could live as cheap as you could in the Rhine 
towns of Germany. Mr. Murray, in his “ Hand- 
Book/’ has inserted a passage in regard to the 
cheapness of Heidelberg, Avhich has been a source 
of serious disappointment and inconvenience to 
numbers. He speaks of an Englishman who lived 
there in 1834, whose annual expenses were only 
380/., including horses, carriages, and servants. 
Every thing, no doubt, was then much cheaper, 
and such a miracle of living possibly might be 
done then; but it is difficult to credit this story 
even of that time, except the gentleman was a 
single gentleman. No family now, with carriage 
and horses, could live there for less than double 
that sum. A furnished house, or even apartments 
suitable to an establishment where a carriage is 
kept, would of itself cost him upwards of 100/. 
a year. The students who come there after having 


F 


66 


GERMAN 


been at other universities, especially those of 
Bavaria, are invariably astounded at the expense 
of Heidelberg. They always assert, that they 
lived much more comfortably in Jena, Erlangen, 
Wurzburg, etc., for half the sum. They complain 
regularly of two things. Of the high charges both 
for living and for university lectures, and of the 
inhospitable coldness of the inhabitants. The 
Heidelbergers excuse themselves for this coldness 
to the English by the fact of so many coming 
there. There may be something in that. One 
thing is very certain, that a German will receive 
in London, where strangers are more numerously 
presented to most families than they are in any 
German city, more hearty kindness any one day 
than an Englishman, be his standing or introduc¬ 
tions what they may, will receive in seven years 
in Heidelberg. We ourselves, in all other places, 
received the most cordial kindness,—there, the 
most pressing attentions we received were in the 
shape of the “ impertinences.” This state of things, 
and the want of intellectual society, added to the 
want of the higher advantages of social life, 
as galleries, first-rate musical entertainments, as 
operas and schools equal to those of the capitals, 
have of late years driven most English families of 
any note from the place, and must, as the railroads 
open the way to other and larger towns, operate 
continually more in this direction. Heidelberg, 
in fact, is a charming place to visit for a few 



EXPERIENCES. G7 

days on account of its charming country, but is not 
in any respect desirable as a place of residence. 

People, in their ideas of economy, do not take 
into account the expenses of taking out and bring¬ 
ing back a family seven or eight hundred miles. 
They do not consider that abroad they must live, 
not in a house with their own furniture, but in a 
furnished house or apartments; and under these 
circumstances must pay actually a greater rental 
than in England. In many old-fashioned and 
quiet towns of England, to say nothing of the 
country-houses, especially good family houses, with 
all necessary appurtenances for the accommodation 
of a family, are, after all, often to be had exces¬ 
sively cheap. I have seen many such in my 
rambles in different parts of this kingdom, perfect 
paradises, with land for horses and cows, and most 
ample gardens, really to be had almost for an old 
song. For fifty or sixty pounds a year, I have 
seen many places fit for a family of any rank. 
And spite of the high price of every thing in our 
towns, all articles of life have been equally low. 
In Devonshire, in Lincolnshire, in Northumber¬ 
land, but more especially in Durham, I have been 
amazed at what a trifling expense a family might 
live. I once dined with a gentleman in the very 
suburbs of the city of Durham. He inhabited an 
old English hall; had a splendid view of the city 
from his windows, ample gardens, all sorts of 
outbuildings, and thirty acres of land; of which 


68 


GERMAN' 


he asked me to guess the rent. It was thirty 
pounds! I found in that city, where there is a 
university, every article of life surprisingly low, 
and the charge at the chief inn where I was several 
days, amazed me beyond measure, not by its great 
but bv its little amount! 

People need not go abroad, if mere general eco¬ 
nomy were the object. My house here in the suburbs 
of London, with stabling, garden, conservatory, 
pleasure-grounds and paddock, costs me very little 
more than did my suite of rooms in Heidelberg, where 
I had not a foot of garden, but simply the privilege 
of walking in one. Nay, only fourteen miles from 
London, in the immediate neighbourhood of Clare¬ 
mont, my house, with ample garden and orchard, 
stables capable of stalling seven. horses, and all 
other offices, with fourteen acres of meadow land 
lying on the celebrated fishing river, the Mole, 
with right of fishing and boating, was much less— 
but 70/. a-year. But it is not mere general economy 
which takes people abroad—at least people who 
have no necessity to bind themselves to the expen¬ 
sive neighbourhood of large cities, and especially 
of devouring London—it is the one great economy 
of education; and that is consideration enough. 
A man who, in this country, has his four or five 
children to educate, cannot do it, if he wishes to 
give them a really first-rate education, at less 
than 100/. a-year each for his boys, and for his 
daughters 80/. This is not merely reckoning the 



EXPERIENCES. 


69 


actual school-wages, but the extras, those formid¬ 
able appendages to every boarding-school bill in 
England. If he average the yearly charge of 
boys and girls at really good boarding-schools, 
he cannot estimate this at less than 801. per annum 
each. And out of such schools he has no means of 
giving them a complete education at all; for any 
private svstem of tuition in this countrv will be 
very confined, and require the addition of a variety 
of masters by the hour, which will bring up the 
sum total, where such masters are available, as 
for instance, for teaching French, German, music 
and singing, to pretty much the same amount. 
Now in one of the German cities you may, if you 
are residing in the place, send your children as 
day-scholars to boarding-schools of the first quality, 
or to the Gymnasium, the public school, preparatory 
to the University, as is the every-day practice, at 
the rate of 51. per annum each. The contrast is so 
striking, that one does not wonder at the multitude 
of English families who go and reside abroad during 
the years of their children’s education. 

Five children at school in England, at £80 each, £400 

Ditto, as day scholars in Germany, at 5 do. 25 

Difference per annum - - - £375 

Now, out of this difference, there has only to be 
deducted the expense of mere eating and drinking 
for their five children; clothes and other things 
they still require in both cases. Add also to the 



70 


GERMAN 



foregoing advantages,thatyour children will, besides 
the best general education, be well grounded in 
French and German, and in music and singing,which 
they cannot possibly be here, except at an enormous 
expense. Our children in England learn a certain 
quantity of French and German, and three-fourths 
of them lose it all again from want of practice; 
but in Germany, during a course of four or five 
years, the language of the country is so thoroughly 
familiarized by daily and hourly use, that it will 
not readily be lost again. It is acquired too by 
children, almost without an effort, or without con¬ 
sciousness, by their association with German chil¬ 
dren. This is a great saving of time, for this 
acquisition is made not so much in school-hours 
as in play. French too is much more spoken there. 
There is a greater intercourse with foreigners, and 
the language is more in daily use. Or you can 
send your children at a little expense into the 
evening circle of a French family, and this gives 
them full familiarity and fluency. For the acquisi¬ 
tion of music and singing, an abode in Germany 
is equally advantageous. These are so much the 
daily and hourly enjoyment, they are so much the 
universal accomplishments of both ladies and gen¬ 
tlemen, that young people seem to live in a musical 
atmosphere, acquire a thorough appetite for it, and 
not only feel the necessity but the thirst for its 
acquisition. In all these particulars, as well as in 
that of a thoroughly good and cheap education for 


EXPERIENCES. 


71 


any track of life, Germany certainly offers the most 
decided advantages. But then, in my opinion, 
these advantages are almost entirely bound up 
with your going thither yourself. 

The sending; of children to a foreign countrv, 
I consider so full of dangers, that I am not prepared 
to recommend it at all. On the contrary, it is, 
in my eyes, so hazardous both to the physical and 
moral constitutions of youth, that it ought not to be 
done, except with the utmost care and caution, and 
is what I could not undertake to advise. 

In the first place, the saving in price is not so 
striking, for those very schools which educate your 
children at 51. a year, will not take them as boarders 
under 40/. or 50/. In the second place, as you are 
far away, a long time must elapse before you really 
can judge that your children are making the best 
use of their time, to say nothing of other consi¬ 
derations. If you are on the spot, you not only 
can watch their progress, can see that they are well 
fed and are made happy, but you have a first-rate 
education for 51. per annum each, or can have what 
masters you please at home at twenty-pence per 
hour in the cheaper parts of Germany. 

The first and best of all plans, therefore, where 
there is a family, and you can do it, is to go and 
see your children educated yourselves. The striking 
amount saved in this one grand article will enable 
you, during these usually expensive years, to live, 
on the whole, very reasonably. Here it is that a 


72 


GERMAN 


most decisive saving can always be made by a 
family which can go out; and at the same time 
gather advantages not to be gathered at home. 
You thus give both yourselves and your children 
all the enjoyments of novelty, change, and know¬ 
ledge of new r people and things, while they are 
educating themselves in the most perfect style, 
wholly unfelt by you. For while the younger 
children are attending the boarding-schools, your 
elder ones may attend the classes of the university, 
and study any one science or branch of learning, 
for 10k or 15/. per annum; in some universities 
for less than 10/. If you save only twenty per 
cent, on your ordinary expenditure in England, 
this will cover, in fact, all the expenses of educa¬ 
tion. 

The price of household articles and charges, to a 
family that may thus wish to go to Germany for 
the purposes of education, are always a matter of 
interest, and may be stated here. Families will 
then be able to compare them with what they are 
paying at home, live in whatever quarter of our 
empire they may. 

Beef is about 4 d. per lb.; mutton, 3JeZ.; veal, 
always very bad, being killed when a few days old, 
3 d.; butter, from Id. to 10c/.; sugar, brown, 5d ., 
lump, 7c/.; bread, just one-third of the present 
London price—a brown quartern loaf, 2d.; the 
small white rolls, called weeks, of which German 
white bread almost always consists (no large white 












EXPERIENCES. 


73 


bread being made), three for a penny. These the 
German bakers in London sell at one penny each. 
Fruit is very cheap; grapes the least so, about 3d. 
per lb. Fine large blue plums you may buy in the 
streets fifty for a penny, and so on. 

Silks, satins, and velvets are much cheaper than 
in England; most other articles of dress as dear or 
dearer. Prints, muslins, and all articles of English 
manufacture, of course, much dearer; and such as 
are reckoned very common things here are worn 
there in company. Washing may be got done at 
a cheap rate, at about Is. per week for a family of 
nine persons; and where the family consists chiefly 
of little children, Sd. per dozen. But this is not 
easily effected at first. We, at the commencement, 
were charged more than London prices for wash¬ 
ing, and the Germans assured us that that was the 
regular price. As we became familiar with the 
language, those prices began to fall, and by re¬ 
peated inquiries fell and fell to one-third of that 
price, which our worthy German housewives pro¬ 
tested that they themselves paid. In fact, until 
you are au fait with the language, you are cheated 
and fleeced unmercifully; and it is curious, as the 
light of knowledge in this respect dawns on you, 
how the prices of all sorts of things begin to fall. 
The very servants, who have made a fine harvest 
of your ignorance, now quit your service. Ours 
candidly confessed that there was no more to be 
got out of us, any more than out of a German 


74 


GERMAN 


family, and that they must seek out some new 
English. One girl told us how much she had been 
blamed by the shopkeepers and others, for staying 
so long with us, and letting us so much into the 
secret of things. It took us, however, three years 
to reduce our charges to anything like those of the 
Germans themselves, and we had but just learned 
to live there when we were coming away. During 
all this time, we never found one German house¬ 
keeper, however friendly she appeared, and how¬ 
ever pious she might be, who would give us a 
glimpse of genuine light, but always asserted that 
we gave no more than they. Oh! thou Deutsche 
Treue ! thou German faithfulness! how different 
a thing art thou to Deutsche Wahrheit, German 
truth; and how different are ye both to our ideas 
of such things ! Deutsche Treue is to stick back and 
edge to each other, and plunder the “ rich English/’ 
Deutsche Wahrheit is, moreover, a most comfort¬ 
able, stretching, India-rubber thing. 

There is a mystery which always puzzles the 
English. The German professors and other official 
people have often notoriously small salaries. You 
are told, for instance, that a German professor with 
an income of 2000 gulden, that is about 180Z. per 
annum, can live very well. Men of this income are 
pointed out to you. They live in houses as good; 
they have a family as large, who dress as well as 
yours. You see them at all public balls, concerts, 
and other places of amusement. They make their 












EXPERIENCES. 


75 


annual pleasure tour, to the baths or elsewhere. 
They drive about in hired carriages very freely, go 
to all entertainments at any distance in them, and 
appear dressed excellently. The ladies have always 
plenty of jewellery, they dress in satins and velvets 
on these occasions, and at home they have stocks 
of clothes which astonish you. They , in fact, 
heartily despise the small stores of all English 
people. But you who do not exceed these people 
in any apparent article of expense, and who do not 
indulge in many particulars which they do, find 
that at the lowest ebb of your economical discove¬ 
ries you cannot live for less than 7000 gulden; and 
compare this sum wfith the expenditure of any or all 
of your English acquaintances, and you find it is the 
average or below it. All are in w r onder over the 
mystery of German management, and not a mortal 
can dive into it. After the most unwearied efforts 
on our parts for three long years, we leave the 
penetration of this standing arcanum to some future 
genius in discovery. 

Return we now to the great subject of education. 

The next safe plan is to entrust your children to 
some English friend in whom you can confide, if 
you know such, who will undertake to accompany 
half-a-dozen boys or girls to Germany for four or 
five years. There he or she can have masters, or 
can send the children daily into a good school, and 
can see that their education regularly and satisfac¬ 
torily progresses. This is no uncommon practice, 


76 


GERMAN 


and I only wonder that it is not more common. 
How many accomplished and well-qualified people, 
qualified I mean both in head and heart, have we, 
who would be delighted to spend a few years in 
Germany, if they could have half-a-dozen of their 
friends’ children thus confided to their care and 
superintendence. It is true that this plan does not 
offer any decided cheapness, for as this superin¬ 
tendence and board would not be restricted to 
about three-quarters of the year as in boarding 
schools at home, but for the whole year, the charge 
for each child could not be much less than 100/. 
per annum. But then, the children w r ould have 
every advantage to be derived from a German edu¬ 
cation, combined with the comforts of an English 
home, and the security of their religious principles. 

Some families, having experienced the evils of the 
German schools, have sought a remedy in confiding 
their children to private German teachers, i. e ., to 
such as receive a limited number of English children 
into their houses; but by this change they have 
only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. 
They have found that their children have generally 
got a worse cuisine, and have exchanged the com¬ 
pany of a troop of cheerful playfellows for solitude. 
So far as the acquisition of German is concerned, 
there is no means by which it is so perfectly ac¬ 
quired as by daily association with German children. 
In private families they lose these great deside¬ 
rata, and find a troop of annoyances instead. I 















EXPERIENCE?. 


77 


have seen a letter sent to a friend of mine in Ens 1 - 
land from a teacher of this kind, who held out to 
the father the attraction of the fine views which his 
children could enjoy from his house; but the father 
had made one trial of this dominie, and had proved 
that these were the only agreeable views which his 
house afforded. Much had been said of the advan¬ 
tages which his children would derive from mixing 
in the evening parties at the teacher’s house; but the 
children soon found that on all such occasions they 
had lessons to learn , and were accordingly sent up 
to their garret. In short, they had little food, little 
society, little pleasure or advantage. They led the 
life of dolorous hermits, and looked with envy on 
the troops of schoolboys whom they saw walking 
abroad, or engaged with cries of happy cheerfulness 
at their play. 

Those who look towards Germany as the country 
of cheap education, have particularly to guard 
against deception, and the most serious mischiefs 
to their children’s constitutions. There is a great 
idea that a good education may be had in that 
country in a boarding-school, where the charge is 
but 20/. per annum. Nay, I have heard it gravely 
asserted by parents, that their children were at 
schools there at 16/. per annum each! Nor 
need this, indeed, appear so extraordinary, when 
there are large schools within five miles of London 
where boys are received at 20/. a year each. It 
is true enough that there are plenty of Do-the- 


78 


GERMAN 


boys Halls, both in this country and on the 
continent. Those who want an education at 16/. 
or 20/., can send their children to Squeers at once. 
They need not go so far as Germany. It requires 
no reflection to satisfy oneself what must be the 
style of living in such establishments, in the cheapest 
countries on the face of the earth. In Germany 
then, there are Do-the-boys Halls in abundance, 
where hard fagging and wretched fare for a few 
years will save any expense of fetching the chil¬ 
dren back. Even in many of those, where the 
education is really good, and the price fair, as from 
35/. to 40/. per annum, the style of living is very 
ill suited to hearty, growing, English children. 
The watery soups, the sour black bread, the sap¬ 
less meat, are not of a stamina to maintain and 
build up robust lads who have been accustomed 
to the pure and vigour-infusing viands of old 
England. In the very best schools, where there 
can be no complaint of the quantity of the food, or 
of its quality so far as the country produces it, the 
meagre breakfasts which all Germans are accus¬ 
tomed to, are very trying to active hungry boys of 
fourteen or fifteen years of age. The breakfast in 
such schools is a single roll of bread and a cup of 
milk. The boys rise at five o’clock, and take this 
at seven. At ten, it is true, thev have commonlv 
in summer a piece of brown bread and some fruit; 
at twelve dinner, and supper at five. The latter 
part of the day is foodful enough; but the first five 


EXPERIENCES. 


79 


hours, that is, from five to ten, with a single roll 
and a cup of milk, are to healthy English boys 
ravenous hours. 

Now nothing can be so injurious to the constitu¬ 
tion of growing youths as deficiency or irregularity 
of food; and if our English children run a risk on 
this score in th ehest German schools, what do thev 
not in the ordinary ones? I have heard the most 
deplorable accounts of the consequences of this 
mode of living, at this important period of life, 
so inferior to our English one. Even where there 
is plenty of food, the food, and especially the meat, 
does not possess the strength and richness of our 
well-fed and well-prepared provisions. Hard work 
and a diet deficient in nutrition or quantity at this 
period, when the frame is so rapidly developing 
itself, are most fatal in their consequences, and lay 

the foundations of various ailments where they 

• 

do not induce consumption and death. I once met 
with an Englishman on the Rhine, who, thinking 
the price asked him at one school, 4 51. a year, too 
high, had six months before removed his two boys 
to another, and had just then been to see them. 
It was a matter of merriment to him to relate the 
accounts given by these boys of the excessive 
debility they suffered from the poor diet. But 
added he, they say “ that they have got pretty 
well over it, and feel now only a weakness in their 
legs!” This account was so satisfactory to this 
tender parent, that he left his children for another 


80 


GERMAN 


half year, no doubt imagining that by that time, 
use, the second nature, would have drawn the 
weakness of the poor boys’ legs out at their toes 
ends. 

Under these circumstances, I repeat, it behoves 
parents to be especially careful, before they send 
their boys into any of these distant establishments, 
to ascertain that not only the school-room, but the 
kitchen, has a good character. Let these schools 
be, if possible, in places where they have friends 
for the time residing, who can have an oversight of 
them. If they want a mercantile education, Ham¬ 
burg is the place; the Moravian schools are much 
praised for their guarded and excellent system of 
instruction, especially in Silesia, where they educate 
the greater part of the children of the nobility; 
there are schools also scattered over the whole 
country here and there, of course, of good repute. 
At Weinheim, on the Bergstrasse, between Darm¬ 
stadt and Heidelberg, is, for instance, one much 
celebrated, and much praised by friends of mine 
who have visited it. This school is conducted by 
two brothers, who seem to take the greatest delight 
in their profession. Their house and school-rooms 
and grounds, are clean, pleasant, and well arranged. 
The boys have workshops where they can employ 
their leisure hours in various handicraft arts. 
During the autumn vacation, the masters set out 
with their boys, each with his knapsack on his back, 
on an excursion to some mountain district, making 


EXPERIENCES. 


81 


their way at every step, at once a charming ramble, 
and a rich lecture on botany, geology, history, 
antiquities, and other knowledge, made vivid in its 
impressions by demonstration amid all the attrac¬ 
tions of nature. This is a common practice in 
German schools; and nothing is more interesting 
than to meet such a troop of fine interesting lads 
with their teachers on the summer hills, or pouring 
into the country inn, with dusty shoes, staves like 
pilgrims, and faces all sunburnt health and enjoy¬ 
ment. No doubt too that many such schools are 
all that they profess to be, or can be wished. The 
great matter is, to be sure that you have found 
them. 

I recommend none in particular. On the con¬ 
trary, I have seen such sudden changes take place 
in really good ones, that I regard schools like inns, 
where one man stops and finds such excellent en¬ 
tertainment that he everywhere trumpets abroad its 
preeminence. Mean while the landlord or the land¬ 
lady, the soul of the establishment, dies, or the inn 
is turned over to other hands; the panegyrist’s 
friend arrives, and finds all comfortless and dear. 
He pays his bill in silence, and goes away with the 
certain conviction that his friend was fuddled when 
he was there, and imagined it so heavenly. I have 
seen a school maintain, and justly, as it often does, 
a great reputation on the merits of a single person in 
it, the cook, the housekeeper, or a private teacher. 
This one party removed, the whole excellence has 

G 


82 


GERMAN 


gone to pieces. I have seen again a school flourish¬ 
ing from a zealous activity and zeal to make it 
flourish,—that point has been scarcely, however, 
attained, when a change has come over it. Either 
the possession of success has induced laziness and 
false security, in which the spirit of honest exertion 
has dwindled away, or a fit of avarice has seized 
on the managers. Able teachers have been, one 
after another, dismissed, and their places filled by 
inexperienced and cheaper ones. There has been 
an attempt to win the same support without giving 
that which justifies it. Schools, like other estab¬ 
lishments, may, and often do, under such circum¬ 
stances, exist for a time on the reputation previously 
acquired, but during this interval, that is, between 
the commencement of defalcation and the discovery 
of it, are, in fact, commiting a gross imposition, and 
the worst kind of swindling, on those who entrust 
their children to them ; and because these cases are 
by no means unfrequent, where schools depend 
much on foreign support, ought no man to recom¬ 
mend a school after he has removed beyond the 
possibility of personal inspection and knowledge. 

Germans in their household arrangements are 
far behind us in delicacy, finish, and refinement. 
This is what strikes our countrymen, accustomed 
to an unequaled application of the arts to the com¬ 
forts and embellishment of private life, generally, 
and as a general fact; but there are some depart¬ 
ments of the domestic system in which a rudeness 


EXPERIENCES. 


83 


exists that at once astonishes and disgusts. It is 
a subject into which on paper one cannot very ex¬ 
plicitly descend, yet, in German boarding-schools, 
English children have suffered so much, even in 
their health, through the disgust and repugnance 
excited by the total inattention to the necessary 
cleanliness and proper maintenance of certain of¬ 
fices, that as a matter of duty I have determined to 
allude to it here; hoping that, as this volume will 
be sure to fall into the hands of those German 
establishments which are most interested in the 
matter, this may draw their attention to the fre¬ 
quently most reprehensible arid intolerable state of 
those indispensable parts of their dwellings. 

Again, there are schools where, while children 
are in health, there is no ground whatever of com¬ 
plaint. The tuition is unexceptionable, the domestic 
management and the cuisine are equally satisfac¬ 
tory; but where a sick child is in a most deplorable 
condition. The great work of the establishment 
goes on; the child is kept in his stationary distant 
chamber; he is, as it were, a forgotten object. It 
is true he has bis meals conveyed to him, if he can 
eat them; but he lies for days, weeks, months, like 
a solitary prisoner. He is attended by a doctor, as 
apathetic and neglectful as the people of the house; 
and has perhaps, at the moments of his greatest 
suffering and need, no means of calling any one to 
him. There is no bell. I speak feelingly on the 
subject, and from the description of one of my own 

g 2 


84 


GERMAN 


children’s sufferings given by himself. The neglect 

in the case of this child was astounding. We 

were alwavs informed that his case was trivial: but 
«/ * 

it was in vain that we applied to the managers for 
a statement from the physician, Dr. Chelius him¬ 
self, till we ordered an English physician from a 
neighbouring city to go over and ascertain the 
truth, when the consequences of long neglect were 
discovered to be most frightful; and, in fact, fatal. 

This was in a school where, though our children 

were only remaining a few months, we had every 

previous reason to expect that they would be quite 

safe and carefullv attended to; and where kind 

friends at hand were anxiously attending to the 

dear boy, but who, like ourselves, could never 

obtain further statements from the physician, than 

that it was a trivial case, totally without danger, 

and required only time and rest, attended by the 

most solemn and repeated assurances that, if the 

slightest symptom of danger appeared, he would 

instantlv inform them. This went on for three 
•/ 

months, when the private statements of our friends 
induced us to call in the English physician; and 
then , to our astonishment, Dr. Chelius could not 
only at once declare that the case was a most 
serious one, but could also foretel accurately how 
it would terminate! What was still worse, this 
man knowing, as it thus proved, the real state of 
the case, at its worst stage, went away four days 
from the city without leaving any other medical 



EXPERIENCES. 


85 


man in care of him. The case being immediately 
on reaching London, submitted to Mr. Liston, Mr. 
Aston Key, and other eminent English surgeons, 
every one at once declared that the neglect of 
the German surgeons in the early stage of the 
mischief had proved fatal. Then it might by 
active and judicious treatment have been checked, 
—now it was impossible, which time only too fully 
confirmed. 

If such things as these can occur where children 
are only left in a school that you have known for 
years, left for a few months, and under the oversight 
of the kindest friends, what may not happen in 
totally strange places, and amongst totally strange 
people? Oh! little indeed do parents know the 
dangers to which they expose their children by 
sending them to foreign schools; little do many 
parents know what their children suffer there! 
Mv heart has often ached, and does so still, when 
I have heard what has been seen by my own friends 
in the sick-room of German schools ! 

It is the common rule to make the sick-room, or 
infirmary, as disagreeable as possible, lest children 
should like to continue in it; as if healthy children, 
in general, were likely to prefer the confinement of 
such a place to the open air, play, and society of 
their playmates! They are expected to do their 
school work as long as they possibly can, and are 
not allowed to have books of amusement to read, 



86 


GERMAN 


or other means of mere amusement, or toys, or 
articles to cut out or construct. They have no 
light in the evening, and seldom, as I have said, 
any way of calling for attendance when needed; 
having no bell, and the sick-room being frequently 
in the highest and most distant part of the house. 
Nothing can, in fact, be imagined more desolate 
than the condition, often that of a sick, solitary 
boy, for days, weeks, or perhaps months. In some 
cases, they have suffered dreadfully, and to the 
great derangement of the whole physical system, 
from the want of assistance on the most indispens¬ 
able occasions; the verv servant to which such an 
invalid has been in a great degree entrusted, even 
when most pitifully appealed to, going away with¬ 
out any attention. I shall never forget the affecting 
statements of a dear child who had thus suffered, 
nor of a gentleman who saw another endeavour- 
ing to conceal something under the bed-clothes 
when he went in. Being kindlv asked to shew 
him what it was, he said that he was not allowed to 
amuse himself with such things, but that by means 
of his schoolfellows he had obtained materials, and 
in secret had constructed what he now drew forth 
out of his bed. It was a railroad, on a long narrow 
board, with all its trains of carriages and engines 
most ingeniously made. The gentleman declared 
that, when he gazed on the pale thin face of the poor 
boy, whose parents and friends were in a distant 


EXPERIENCES. 


87 


land, and then on the cherished and admirable pro¬ 
duction of his many solitary hours, he could not 
restrain his tears. 

T have said enough, I am persuaded, to infuse 
into all prudent parents a salutary spirit of caution 
in this most important matter of sending their 
children into a foreign land, except after the most 
rigid inquiries, and from persons of the most re¬ 
sponsible character on the spot. I will only add 
once again, let no man recommend as excellent, 
that which he has now ceased himself to see. Before 
closing this most important part of mv subject, I 
must however ask the question —Why cannot we 
have a class of schools established in Enodand, 
where every advantage of the continent could be 
obtained with every advantage of our own country, 
at a very reasonable rate ? 

The great advantage to which parents look in 
sending their children abroad, is a really first-rate 
education at a really reasonable rate. This educa¬ 
tion, besides the general branches as given here, is 
expected to include instruction in music, dancing, 
the German and French languages by natives, so 
as to be fluently spoken; and all this at a charge, 
without extras , not exceeding 50/. a year. 

Now, that this might be all well accomplished, 
by persons who had a conscientious desire to carry 
it out, is most certain. They must seek out good 
and spacious premises in a part of England at 
once agreeable, healthy, and cheap. Large country 




88 


GERMAN 


houses are to be had with ample grounds in many 
parts of England, and in accessible ones too, at a 
wonderfully low rate. Native and well-qualified 
teachers of music, dancing, languages, are to be 
had in plenty at a very reasonable rate; and it 
would then only require proper arrangements, so 
that the French and German classes should con¬ 
verse only in their respective languages with their 
tutors, and for certain fixed hours, in order to give 
the most perfect practice. I conceive that a great 
revolution might, on such a plan, be effected in 
English school-keeping, and the higher prices 
necessary in the neighbourhood of London be 
greatly lowered. 

There remains yet one more subject on which 
to say a few words,—that is, on the education of 
English young men at the German universities; of 
the excellence and cheapness of the education to 
be obtained at those universities there can be no 
question. The German Professors are at once 
learned and laborious; and the examples of industry 
exhibited by them might be most useful, were it 
not for the existence of other habits in those uni¬ 
versities, which are repugnant to all our English 
notions. I have endeavoured to make the whole 
system of the German universities, both as regards 
the mode and nature of the education in them, and 
the old-established practices of the students, fully 
known to the English public, in ‘‘The Student 
Life of Germany.” I shall, in speaking of the 










EXPERIENCES. 


89 


despotism of the German government, shew by 
what means the most objectionable practices of 
student life are still carefully, for political objects, 
supported and cherished by these governments. 
In this place, I shall only allude to one circum¬ 
stance, which must make any parent pause before 
he sends his sons to study in these schools. It is 
the prevailing , and almost universal , religious infidelity 
which prevails in them. In my “ Rural and Social 
Life of Germany/’ I have explained the cause of 
this. It is the result of the German philosophy. 
The principles of Kant, carried to an extremity 
bv Hegel and others, have succeeded in making 
Christianity regarded as a fable. Strauss has col¬ 
lected together all the infidel arguments of all the 
deistical writers of all countries and ages, and 
condensed them into a most ably written Life of 
Christ, of which a cheap and very poor translation 
is now to be seen in our infidel book-shops in 

London. John Keats beautifully says— 

» 

Do not all charms fly 
At the mere touch of cold philosophy? 

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven; 

We know her woof, her texture ; she is given 
In the dull catalogue of common things. 

Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings. 

Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, 

Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine— 

Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made 
The tender-personed Lamia melt into a shade. 

Poem of Lamia. 


90 


GERMAN 


Philosophy never exerted its earthly, common* 
izing, stripping, denuding, skeletonizing power, so 
completely as in the shape of German philosophy. 
It has thoroughly clipped the angel wings of Chris¬ 
tianity. It has represented the miraculous histories 
of the Old and New Testament as fables. It has 
described the wonders of God’s providence, as 
exhibited in the establishment of the Jewish peo¬ 
ple, and of Jesus Christ’s miracles for the esta¬ 
blishment of his religion, to be legends, sagas, of 
the same character as those of all other ancient 
nations. This philosophy has seized on the youth 
of Germany to a frightful extent. The philoso¬ 
phical chairs are in all quarters infected by it. 
Who would be so unphilosophical as to be unphi- 
losophical? Who would be so simple as to believe 
only with the simple? All the wonderful connec¬ 
tion and consistency of prophecy, from the com¬ 
mencement of the world to the very coming of 
Christ; all the internal evidences of more than 
human sagacity, wisdom, and truth, embodied in 
the Sacred writings; the magnificence, the purity, 
the depth of philosophy displayed in them; the 
sublime beauty, benevolence, and superhuman doc¬ 
trines of Christ,—in fact, all the nobler features 
and divine spirit of the Sacred writings, all their 
admirable adaptation to the wants and wishes of 
the human heart, to the needs of earth and of 
humanity, of a principle of solace, elevation, and 
refinement—a binding and brother-creating prin- 


EXPERIENCES. 


91 


ciple,—are lost sight of; and Christianity is mea¬ 
sured by the cold yard-wand of a groveling vender 
of scholastic webs, and found to have some good 
in it, but to be more than we have need of. The 
“Ice-time,” which certain continental philosophers 
contend to have in some former age reigned over 
and bound up in frozen death, this planet, has 
actually seized on Germany. Woe to those who 
come within its reach. All that is ethereal in their 
nature or aspirations will perish. They will be¬ 
come too wise to be generous, poetical, or Christian. 
They will learn to look on all that is not “of the 
earth, earthy,” as a beautiful fiction; and to regard 
with Kant nothing beyond the range of their ex¬ 
perience as true. What that range and that ex¬ 
perience will become, need no words to explain. 
Selfish shrewdness will become the grand reigning 
principle of life. The human angel will cease to 
soar towards that heaven to which it sees no 
glorious Jacob’s ladder any longer leading, nor 
fair shapes ascending and descending, as the living 
ministers and messengers between two kindred 
worlds; but will creep on the earth, a many-fingered 
crab, in the crust of its selfishness. 

Amongst the whole number of German students 
whom I have known, it would be difficult to select 
a dozen who were not confirmed deists. Let those 
who doubt the extent to which this philosophical 
pestilence has spread, go and judge for themselves; 
but let none send out solitary youths to study in 


92 


GERMAN 


German universities, who do not wish to see them 
return, very clever, very learned, and very com¬ 
pletely unchristianized. The only safe course in 
this respect, as well as with regard to schools, is 
when parents accompany their children, and give 
them the effective antidote of an English home, 
and English sentiments, while they are making 
their necessary acquisitions of knowledge. 


EXPERIENCES. 


93 


PART II. 

i 


CHAPTER I. 


Dangerous as is the temerity with which we 
send our children into the German schools, yet far 
more dangerous is the administration of German 
institutions which we have for some time cherished 
at home, and of which the consequences are creeping 
upon us with a strong and stealthy speed of which 
the public has no proper conception. I have 
already alluded to the fashionable character which 
German language, literature, and education, have for 
some time increasingly assumed amongst us; and 
pointed to the causes of it. Let us now fix our 
eyes with a steady glance on the consequences. 

That Germany, as well as other foreign nations, 
has knowledge, practices, arts, or institutions, that 
we may copy, or introduce with good effect, is 
what I am by no means intending to deny. On 
the contrary, it is a practice, judiciously and ho- 







94 


GERMAN 


nestly carried out, which I would most warmly 
recommend. But let us take heed that it is this 
judicious and honest practice which is adopted. 
Let us vigilantly keep our eyes open, and mark 
that the artful and the selfish do not gather up just 
what in these foreign practices is prejudicial to 
the public liberty and welfare. Now, I do not hesi¬ 
tate to declare that interested persons have already 
succeeded to a certain degree in inoculating our 
legislators with a passion for the worst portion of 
these foreign practices and systems; that these 
practices and systems are already introduced and 
engrafted; that the taste and fashion for this is 
carefully cultivated, while the better, the more 
useful, the more popular portion of the foreign, 
and especially the German, institutions and prac¬ 
tices, are carefully passed over. 

Our wealthy and legislative classes travel abroad, 
and certainly not with their eyes shut. They see 
most distinctly a certain description of things. 
They see, each of them, with one eye admirably; 
with the other, however, and it is a pity, they are 
either actually or affectedly blind. 

What now, amongst the Germans, strikes every 
liberal lover of his country, every man who has no 
motive but to see the truth and spread it, especially 
in our own beloved country ? 

He sees a simple, and less feverish state of 
existence. He sees a greater portion of popular 
content diffused by a more equal distribution of 



EXPERIENCES. 


95 


property. He sees a less convulsive straining 
after the accumulation of enormous fortunes. 
He sees a less incessant devotion to the mere 
business of money-making, and consequently a less 
intense selfishness of spirit; a more genial and 
serene enjoyment of life, a more intellectual embel¬ 
lishment of it with music and domestic entertain¬ 
ment. He sees the means of existence kept, by 
the absence of ruinous taxation, of an enormous 
debt recklessly and lavishly piled on the public 
shoulders, by the absence of restrictions on the 
importation of articles of food, cheap and easy 
of acquisition. He sees, wherever he goes, in 
great cities, or small towns, every thing done 
for the public enjoyment. Public walks, beauti¬ 
fully planted, and carefully accommodated with 
seats at convenient distances for the public to rest 
at leisure. He sees these walks laid out wherever 
it be possible. Old town-walls and ramparts are 
converted into promenades, commanding by their 
elevation the finest prospects over town and country. 
The whole of city or town is encircled by 
them. Thus, the old as well as the young can 
ascend from the heat and dust and hurry of the 
streets, and enjoy the freshest air, and the most 
livelv and yet soothing scenes in the streets below 
on one hand, or gaze into the green fields and hills 
around. It is delightful to see on fine days the 
greyheaded fathers of a city thus seated on these 
airy walks beneath their favourite limes, and en- 


96 


GERMAN 


joying their chat together over old times, while 
within a few steps of home their eyes can still 
wander over those distant scenes whither their feet 
no longer can carry them. If there be an old 
castle in the suburbs of any of their towns, it is 
not shut up, but its gardens and its very walls and 
courts and fosses, are laid out in lovely walks, 
and the whole place is made the favourite resort 
and enjoyment of the whole population. There 
a coffee-house or cassino is sure to be found; and 
there beneath the summer trees, old and young, 
rich and poor, sit and partake of their coffee, wine, 
and other refreshment, while some old tower near 
is converted into an orchestra, and sends down the 
finest music for the general delight. 

He sees all sorts of gardens, even to the royal 
ones, and all sorts of estates, kept open for the public 
observation and passage through them; he sees the 
woods and forests all open too to the foot and spirit 
of the delighted lover of nature and of solitude. He 
sees all public amusements and enjoyments, as thea¬ 
trical and musical representations, the very highest 
of this kind, kept cheap and accessible to all. There 
are no operas there with boxes let at 300/. per 
annum, with seats in the pit at halffa guinea each. 
Twenty-pence is the price of gentility itself; and 
for five-pence may be heard, and in a good place, 
the finest operas performed by the finest singers 
in the country. For fourpence may be attended the 
finest out-of-door concerts of Strauss or Farmer, in 



EXPERIENCES. 


97 


the capital of Austria itself. He sees education 
kept equally cheap in school and university, kept 
within the reach of all, for the free use of all; and 
the schools so systematized as to answer the various 
requirings of every varied class or profession. He 
sees the church kept cheap, and the churches open 
and free to one man as well as another, without 
pews and property, where all should be open, the 
common meeting-place of the common family before 
the common Father. He sees no church-rates 
imposed on stubborn and refractory consciences, 
but a voluntary contribution, left to the voluntary 
attender of divine service. 

He sees musical and singing societies encouraged 
amongst the people, where the working classes, 
when the labours of the day are done, can meet and 
enjoy a refining treat. He sees these civilizing 
and refining influences extended over the open-air 
enjoyments of the Sundays and holidays of the 
common people in city and country. 

But what of all these do our wealthy, our in¬ 
fluential, our law-makers, bring home and introduce 
amongst us? Nothing at all. Not the slightest 
trace of them. There might be no such things in 
existence; these very things which are forced from 
the paws of foreign tyranny, for its own quiet and 
continuance, because it knows that if a people be 
not contented, it cannot long be kept quiet; these 
things, which constitute the bright side of an en¬ 
slaved people, which the Germans are, none of all 

H 


/ 


98 


GERMAN 


our sagacious law-makers, or even law-reformers, 
seem to know anything at all of; at least they 
give, by no single attempt to introduce them, the 
slightest evidence of their knowledge of them. 

And yet one would have imagined that amenities 
and innocent privileges contributing so much to the 
enjoyment of every-day life, and which have so 
eminently answered the purpose of German despots 
in keeping a great people tractable in their chains, 
would, as a matter of deep policy, have been, at 
least on this ground, rendered agreeable to despotic 
spirits at home. But no, our rulers and legislators 
have different notions. They are accustomed to 
regard the people, the great mass, not as the objects 
of government, but the objects of taxation; not 
as creatures who are created to enjoy themselves, 
but to pay as much as possible. Our government 
does not pretend to be paternal; but conservative. 
It does not regard the people as children, who 
should be informed and advanced; but as a rude 
mass, whose rudeness must be conserved. Accord¬ 
ingly, have they taken a single step, instructed by 
what they have seen abroad, to reduce the excessive 
cost of living in this country ? Have they abolished 
the corn laws, and the other restrictive laws which 
keep up the rate of rent, of taxation, of every other 
expense which presses with a direful weight on the 
whole population? Have they sought thus to 
diffuse cheapness and comfort at home ? To check 
that rapidly rising manufacturing prosperity abroad, 


EXPERIENCES. 


99 


a prosperity which strikes its roots into our very 
vitals? A parasite plant, rooted on the branches 
and the very bole of our manufacturing tree of life? 
Have they been startled by the tarifs of America, of 
France, Russia, and Germany, all aiming at the 
same life ? All as manifest declarations of war 
upon us, as if they were made with the menaces 
and attested with the bruit of cannon ? Have 
they sought thus to reduce the horrible masses 
of misery in our metropolis, and our manufacturing 
districts, such masses of misery as strike foreigners 
dumb, and have no parallel either in the present or 
the past world? Have they done any one thing in 
these urging and essential matters, to bring us to 
a nearer resemblance in popular comfort to Ger¬ 
many ? Have they even done the slightest thing 
to make the means of popular refinement and out- 
of-door enjoyments more accessible? 

No ! on the contrary, when Mr. Buckingham, in 
Parliament, brought in a bill to effect the creation 
of public walks in and about our populous towns, 
those very men scouted the idea as something 
visionary and childish. As Wyndham resisted 
the abolition of bull-baiting, dog-fighting, and 
such brutal pastimes, as something truly English, 
so our present legislators regard a vulgar, rude, 

- unembellished, and unaccommodated existence, as 
something essentially English for the people. Ac¬ 
cordingly, our huge manufacturing towns swarm 
with a life which is crowded into the densest space 

h 2 


100 


GERMAN 


of dirt and squalor. They are bald masses of 
brick; stupendous manufacturing piles, where the 
most extensive of all manufactories is that of 
misery. They have great mills and little houses 
in abundance; a few fine mansions, and a swarm 
of petty and pestiferous dens. You may breathe 
as much foetid air there, in narrow lanes and still 
narrower dwellings, and amongst spindles and 
wheels, as you please ; but where shall you breathe 
the free air? Where are the public walks and 
the lime-shaded gardens where the hard-taxed and 
hard-worked people shall air themselves ? Where 
shall they turn out from these grim and gloomy 
Avails, and find seats awaiting them beneath the 
pendent boughs of green trees ? Where shall they 
escape from the rattle of machinery, and the cries 
of ill-fed children, to the scenes of Nature ? Nature 
exists not for them in any shape, at least in any 
good one. Free nature lies afar off, on moor and 
mountain; and there, if they extend their walks 
beyond the far-stretching limits of the brick wil¬ 
derness, are still park and garden walls, and 
hedges of interminable enclosures, where the active 
quarter sessions has closed up every ancient foot¬ 
path. Good-nature they never experienced; and 
human nature has only presented to them its el¬ 
bows. Where is the cheap and pleasant cup of 
coffee, and the strain of glorious music sounding 
over the lamp-hung boughs, beneath which their 
poor but smiling wives and children sit? 


EXPERIENCES. 


101 


The very question appears a mockery. What! 
the common people of England have public walks, 
and spreading trees, and public seats, and cheap 
coffee, and music! It is an idea enough to make 
the hair of aristocracy stand on end. These are 
the amenities of life. These are the exclusive pri¬ 
vileges of wealth and station. The people,—at 
least, the English,—is a thing which has always 
been regarded solely as a beast of burden; as a 
mass of rude, raw, sturdy labourers, to whom 
knowledge and refined enjoyments are as unfitting 
as buns for brewers’ horses. They have been, as 
it has been thought, most appropriately named, 
“ the great unwashed,” the herd, the swinish mul¬ 
titude, the rascal rabble. Such a thing as that of 
the common herd” of Englishmen, that is, of 
the mass and multitude of the country, having a 
cheap livelihood, and leisure to enjoy the “even¬ 
ings of their days,” in a few hours relaxation, 
with music, airy walks, and intelligent conversa¬ 
tion,—in short, of becoming “ the great washed,” 
—has never entered the heads scarcely of the 
philosophical reformers. These refined relaxations, 
these social luxuries of creatures who, though la¬ 
bouring creatures, are yet God’s children, the 
highest title still upon earth,—pile up kingships 
and dukeships and lordships as you will,—are left 
to be the common enjoyments of those foreign 
peasants and artizans whom we so sagaciously warn 
our working classes against resembling. If those 


102 


GERMAN 


foreign people, whom we represent as living on 
black bread and getting no animal food,—who, our 
legislators gravely tell us, on the authority of Dr. 
Bowring, do not in Prussia eat more than thirty 
pounds of flesh each in a year, while the inmates 
of our union workhouses get fifty pounds, but as 
gravely forget to tell us how much of other good 
and substantial food they get, which our working- 
classes do not and cannot get. 

Accordingly, the English labouring classes, the 
most industrious, the most laborious, the most 
ino-enious, the hardest worked, and hardest taxed, 
and hardest pinched class of people on the face of 
the earth, go on labouring when they can get 
labour, and starving when they cannot; they go 
on eating their fifty pounds of meat yearly, when 
they can get it, and suffering want of every thing 
besides—want of cheap bread, want of instruction 
and public sympathy, want of coal for the winter 
and of decent clothes in summer, want even of a 
spot where they can turn out on a holiday, or on an 
evening, and shake their rags in the wind, and 
scatter on it the baleful effluvia of their crowded 
factories, and their dismal dens, called houses.* 

* Yet it would seem that, in 1840, Parliament actually did 
vote a sum of 10,000/. for “ Public Walks:” and the “Morn¬ 
ing Chronicle” states that 500/. of this money had been ex¬ 
pended ; 300/. being advanced to the Provost of Dundee, for 
the improvement of Magdalen Yard, and 200/. for improve¬ 
ments in the neighbourhood of Arbroath ; and that the remain¬ 
ing 9,500/. is still lying in the Exchequer ! If this be fact, 


EXPERIENCES. 


103 


Thus they go on, miserable themselves, and fright¬ 
ening government with their Chartism : thus, unfed, 
unclad, unimproved, and unamused, while the poor 
German peasants, whom we would have these 
dolorous creatures pity, go on eating their thirty 
pounds of meat per annum, but adding thereto, 
from the strips of their own land , plenty of good 
potatoes, fruit from their orchards, eggs from their 
fowls, milk from their cows, and flour from the 
corn of their own fields. If our manufacturing 
population could but see the jolly substitutes for 
the odd twenty pounds of meat in the year, that are 
so liberally credited to their account; if they could 
but see the famous cheap brown loaves, the famous 
puddings stuffed with fruit and eggs, the famous 
messes of boiled potatoes and milk, the dried 
fruits and curds, which these Prussian and German 
peasants “ make a shift with/’ they would be very 
glad to throw up their fifty pounds of meat, and 
all their other starvation into the bargain, in ex¬ 
change for it. What matters whether a man has 
a single pound of meat in the year or not, if he be 
well stuffed out with all the other good substantials 
of life ? What matters it if a man get fifty pounds 
of flesh in a year, and wants fifty things beside ? 

it can never be understood by our manufacturing towns, or 
two petty improvements, and these in Scotland alone, could 
never have been the sole results. Why do not the active 
leaders of improvement in our provincial towns—why do not 
the master-manufacturers look into this? Surely free air is as 
essential to their starving workmen as untaxed bread. 


104 


GERMAN 


wants a regular substantial supply of flour, bread, 
pudding, eggs, potatoes, and milk ? 

Accordingly, as our legislators do not see these 
things on the continent, high rents, high taxes, 
high-priced food, and a high pressure of distress, 
continue to banish comfort, knowledge, and mo¬ 
rality, from the working masses. Accordingly, 
throughout the vast (and by most of our legislators, 
who should first personally learn the actual con¬ 
dition of our people before they begin to prescribe 
for it) untravelled regions of our most wonderful 
metropolis, the state of every-day existence is one 
great chaos of struggling care, dirt, and heartache. 
Swarms of human creatures, thick as motes in 
the sun, and stretching for miles and for leagues 
around in densest contact, wrestle day and night 
with dearness, taxation, and despair. They wallow 
in a poverty the most hideous of all poverty, in 
foetid smut and filth; poverty, in selfish, ravenous 
degradation; poverty, without moral or religious 
culture, and without hope. The gin-shops, the 
only splendid erections in those regions, stand at 
every corner; and around their doors, the most 
squalid and the most revolting objects,—figures of 
rags, and faces of foulest and most desperate degra¬ 
dation. Wretched mothers with more wretched 
infants in their arms pass in if they have the neces¬ 
sary penny, and out if they have the necessary 
strength. Women reel forth, and falling headlong 
on the grated window-recesses beneath their feet, 


EXPERIENCES. 


105 


or on the pebbles, gash their haggard faces, and 
are reared by the standers by, bloody and stupified, 
against the walls. At midnight, in the shivering 
and piercing midnights of the wildest winter, stand 
trembling crowds round those infernal doors, raven¬ 
ous, if they have but the penny to pass—not the 
gates of heaven, but the gates of hell! Other 
women on a Saturdav night, who have been 
starving all the week, and bearing daily tortures 
to which the harrows and the thorns under which 
David put his enemies the Amorites were nothing; 
the perpetual fangs of hunger, and the incessant 
cries of hungering children—are seen following their 
surly husbands from the doors of counting-houses, 
where they have just been paid their week’s wages, 
and imploring, with menaces and curses, for a 
portion of that cash, with which the sour wretches, 
base from years of hardening in ignorance and vice, 
are making off most coolly to the alehouse. 

And these are not the scenes of a casual time 
of extraordinary distress; they are not the scenes 
of one or two confined spots; they are the daily, 
standing, established, and ordinary scenes of many 
and many a square mile,—of many and many a 
^wonderful region of the vastest, most populous, 
and most wealthy city of the world. They are 
scenes that any one may readily find, if he will 
seek them. They live, and heave with a pestilent 
life, like some huge mass of corruption, and force 
into our most public streets its terrible amount of 




106 


GERMAN 


crime and prostitution, and all the while ten thou¬ 
sand homes are lit up with wealth and comfort; 
the carriages of the affluent and the happy roll 
along in crowds; chapels and churches send up 
their hymns and praises; and in the evening dusk, 
the father dismisses his happy family to rest, with 
a word of thanksgiving for overflowing blessings, 
while under his very windows sit houseless children 
side by side nodding in cold sleep; and homeless, 
tieless, hopeless vice, curses God, and dies in un¬ 
regarded shame. 

Go! British legislators, British travellers, Bri¬ 
tish philanthropists, British Christians; gaze and 
pace through every country of the continent; pace 
through every region of the world; nay, turn back 
and traverse every region of history, every nation 
of multitudinous history, every people, pagan or 
utterly savage, and find us any scene like this! 
To this gigantic conglomeration of care and crime, 
of misery unmitigated and depravity unheeded, to 
this huge and eating cancer in the heart of the 
proudest, the most affluent, and the most Christian 
community, what are the thirty pounds of meat and 
the black bread of the German peasant? And by 
this black scene, what a heaven of peace and inno¬ 
cent pleasure is the Sunday and the holiday dance 
of the working class of even such demoralized 
cities as Munich or Vienna ? 

But if this frightful contrast is not observed by 
our travellers, and if they bring us no means of 


experiences. 


107 


alleviating it, by cheap food, and innocent and 
refining pleasures, what do they see abroad, and 
what do they bring us thence? A most admir¬ 
able System of Police ; military regulations and 
costumes; endless Boards of Commissioners, and 
the Advocacy of a Government Education ! 


The misery of the poor in the metropolis and the manufac¬ 
turing districts appears from recent disclosures to be almost 
outdone in some of the agricultural counties. The state of 
things in Dorsetshire, lately made public by Mr. Sheridan 
and Lord Ashley, is the most frightful that ever was existent 
in a Christian country, and almost exceeds that of our subter¬ 
ranean horrors, laid open to the day by the inquiries of the 
Commissioners into the horrors of our coal mines. Here are 
whole families existing on five shillings a week, in houses not 
fit for swine to sty in, in a state of corroding and contact, 
destructive, not merely of all comfort, but of all morals. The 
dreadful display of misery, starvation, perishing by actual 
hunger and neglect, of incest and other fearful crimes, arising 
from the state of agricultural wages, have awakened a public 
horror, which it is hoped will lead to the remedy of the evil. 
Mr. Sheridan has shewn himself worthy of the name he bears, 
and the blood which runs in his veins, by his lively sympathy 
with the poor, and his bold and independent conduct in the 
fearless exposure of this dreadful state of things. 





108 


GERMAN 


CHAPTER II. 


There can be no objection to our admiration of 
German literature, there is much in it that is rich 
and beautiful; there can be no objection to our 
imitation of whatever is simple, honest, economical, 
cheap, or amusing, in the habits of German life; 
nay, metaphysical people may even follow Kant 
and Hegel if they please, but for heaven’s sake let 
us neither copy Metternich nor the King of Prussia. 
In a cheerful and gay enjoyment of simple things 
let us retrace our steps, and be German if you will, 
but from any inoculation of their religion or politics 
“ good Lord deliver us! ” 

In my “ Rural and Social Life of Germany,” I 
have drawn a full picture of their manners and 
doings; let us now take a view of them with refer¬ 
ence to their political character, and we shall see 
that they are the very last people whom we should 
imitate in these respects, or whose institutions we 
should import. As regards their private life, the 
Germans are a contented and comfortable people, 
as a nation they are slaves; and every step we 
approach nearer to them in their machinery of 
government, the nearer we become such ourselves. 




EXPERIENCES. 


109 


But perhaps there are very few of our countrymen 
who have sufficiently considered or been struck 
with the great extent to which we have been Ger¬ 
manized in these respects. It will be well to stand 
at once, and consider this fact; to examine and get 
an idea of it in all its extent. After an absence of 
three years,—three years in which I have been 
observing the nature, presence, and working of the 
German police, and of course during which my 
eyes have been withdrawn from the progress of the 
police system in England, I must confess that I 
was startled to see the rapid strides which this 
German system had made amongst us. At every 
turn, in town or country, a policeman! On the 
highways, a new species of highwaymen, huge 
fellows on huge horses, riding in broad daylight 
with huge swords by their sides! Is that a sight 
which any Englishman ten years ago would have 
believed ever to see in England? Not only in the 
crowded thoroughfares of the metropolis, or of our 
other great towns, where I left the police, were they 
now to be found; but like an everspreading torrent, 
they had overflowed into every quiet town and 
village, every quiet outskirt and solitary suburb. 
They stood leaning against every wall that had 
been only built up yesterday. They were chatting 
with the servant-maids at every back door, as the 
mistresses assert to the excessive corruption of the 
suburban servant-maid race. And if idleness be 
the devil’s workshop, where had he ever such a 





no 


GERMAN 


workshop erected as the lanes and by-streets, in 
which these lounging, long-legged servants of the 
public are established, with little to see and nothing 
to do? 

But it was not here only that these belted knights- 
errant were to be found. Where the poet and 
the naturalist were formerly only to be found, on 
the moor, in the solitary country lane, in the wood- 
path, by the old brookside, there I now encountered 
one of these great-coated and numbered musers. 
It was a comfort to see them numbered, or one 
would have deemed them numberless. But adieu 
now to rural musings. Thank heaven, I wrote the 
Book of the Seasons ten years ago! There is no 
policeman entered in any list of its migratory 
birds! Adieu now to poetry—who need wonder 
at its decline ! Who can botanize, or entomologize, 
in the face of a policeman? Who will venture 
to stride over a hedge in quest of a flow r er, or 
a butterfly, when a big man in a big coat may 
stride over after him? Who will venture to cap¬ 
ture a fly, when he may himself be clutched by a 
Harry-longlegs, and instead of enveigling his prize 
into his box, may be himself consigned to a watch- 
box ? Who will sing a new song of liberty or love, 
when he may be dragged off* for disturbing the 
public peace? Blessed be the ways of Providence 
who sent Shakspeare and Milton to wander on the 
solitary wold, and raise their free and glorious 
voices, before the days of the Rural Police! 


EXPERIENCES. 


Ill 


Would Milton ever have said exultingly, 

“ To-morrow, to fresh fields and pastures new,” 

if he had been sure to meet a policeman in every one 
of them? Would Shakspeare have ever “ carolled 
his wood-notes wild,” if he had been in danger 
of being taken up for a wild man of the woods ? 
Would even Hervey have ever made his (i Medi¬ 
tations amongst the Tombs,” with a rural Policeman 
No. 7777! dogging his footsteps? And O thou 
good, dear shy soul, Cowper, what a fright would 
a batch of rural police have been to thee! They 
would have startled thee worse than a greyhound 
would have startled thy own tame hares. Instead 
of a mischievous bull, thou wouldst certainly have 
addressed thy indignant vows to John Bull’s new 
rural creature, the rural policeman:— 

Go,—thou art all unfit to share 
The pleasures of this place, 

With such as its old tenants are, 

Creatures of gentle race. 

* * * 

I care not whether north or south. 

So I no more may find thee; 

The angry muse thus sings thee forth, 

And claps the gate behind thee! 

Praise heaven, all ye lucky fellows of the last 
generation, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Southey, and 
the like, and the five remnants of the old race 
of giants—Wordsworth, Rogers, Moore, Camp- 


112 


GERMAN 


bell, and Wilson; and taunt us not that we do not 
come up to the stature and valour of the first 
number. Go! you had all the world to your¬ 
selves; there were gipsies and stout beggarwomen, 
leech-gatherers, anglers and pedlars, in your time,— 
none of those locomotive engines of the modern 
railroad—the Rural Policemen! If Byron had 
been obliged to sing— 

There’s a policeman in the pathless wood! 

There is another on the lonely shore; 

There is security where none intrude 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar; 

what an odd medley he would have made of it. 

To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell, 

To slowly trace the solitary scene ; 

would have had but little fun in it, for Childe 
Harold, with a burly policeman “ slowly pacing 
the solitary scene,” after him, with his oil-cloth 
cape rolled up at his side, as if it concealed a 
bludgeon. O George Crabbe, thou Rembrandt of 
Suffolk-marine alehouses and fishing-creeks, with a 
tar-brush for thy pencil, what a Borough would 
have been thine with a squadron of police in it? 
What an orderly Borough ? What a set of sober, 
straight-walking, and straight-laced fellows, would 
all thy jolly sailor-boys have been, instead of the 
riotous roisterers of “ The Ship,” “The Boat,” 
“ The Three Jolly Sailor Boys,” or “ The Anchor,” 
where they met 


EXPERIENCES. 


113 


In one smoked room, all clamour, crowd, and noise, 
Where a curved settle half surrounds the fire; 

Where fifty voices purl and punch require; 

They come for pleasure in their leisure hour, 

And they enjoy it in their utmost power. 

Standing they drink, they swearing smoke, while all 
Call, or make ready for a second call. 

There is no time for trifling—“Do you see 
We drink, and drub the French extempore!” 

Ay, but the police would have been upon them! 
And what an orderly and good-for-nothing borough 
for a hunter of life and manners like Crabbe! 
Why, the very crabs have had their day, and now 
it is the day of the rural police. John Clare got a 
glimpse of them, and it operated, as it must do 
on all poets—it drove him mad, and he took to an 

asvlum. 

•> 

But bad as this extension of the police system 
may be regarded by poets, naturalists, and lovers 
of retirement, yet this is not the worst direction 
that it has taken. This direction admits of a joke. 
We may satirize it as poets, but in another mode of 
its employment, we must hate it as men. In the 
account of the government prosecution of O’Connell 
and his fellow repealers, it was coolly stated that 
the witnesses against these gentlemen were 'police¬ 
men who had attended the repeal meetings in private 
clothes.” 

Since then, at the last Clonmel assizes in fact, 
the counsel for a prisoner, who had been left seven 
months in prison on a charge of sedition, and left 

i 




114 


GERMAN 


unprosecuted by the government, denounced this 
unconstitutional proceeding, and shewed that not 
only had the prisoner been incarcerated for seven 
months on the charge of a disguised policeman, by 
whom government could rob any innocent man of 
his liberty for seven months, and then sneak out 
without any prosecution, and thus without any 
public opportunity of defence and redress; but that 
the police in Ireland actually went about dressed as 
ballad-singers, enticing people to sedition. First 
they took seditious ballads to printers to print, and 
then seized upon them as felons, and dragged them 
to prison ! These then are the fast-ripening fruits 
of the great police system. Here is one avowed 
object of the employment of these swarming batta¬ 
lions of police; not to guard the streets from dis¬ 
order, but to attend as spies on all occasions when 
free-born Englishmen meet to discuss their rights 
and their wrongs. We are then, like Austria, to 
have not only a public, but a secret police. Do our 
countrymen see this thing? Do they see its real 
import, and its consequences? Who shall now 
know whether the stranger at his elbow in public 
or in private, at a public meeting or in the street, 
may not be a paid spy and policeman of govern¬ 
ment? Is this then a part of our British consti¬ 
tution? Is this a British practice? Or if so, 
where now does England differ from Austria? 

Nothing has startled me so much as the apathy 
with which this has been regarded by the public. 




EXPERIENCES. 


115 


It seems even by the press to have been received 
as a matter of course. We have seen it stated too, 
that at different elections Metropolitan police have 
been sent down at an expense of from 200k to 300k? 
Are these then too matters of course ? Is it for 
the purpose of supporting the candidates of a mi¬ 
nistry, however despotic, that we are to pay these 
bludgeoned myrmidons? These are practices that 
cannot be seen with indifference by any friend of 
his country who is capable of any reflection, be he 
of what political creed he may. 

This fact of armed policemen being sent down 
to country towns during elections, is a clear, and 
direct, and flagrant breach of the constitution. It 
is a part of the constitution that a borough shall be 
freed during an election from the presence of an 
armed force; that the people may enjoy the exer¬ 
cise of their franchise unawed and unrestrained by 
armed power. The soldiers are carefully, therefore, 
removed to a distance. But of what use is it to 
remove soldiers in one shape, if they are to be 
introduced in another? What now are the police 
but an armed force ? What matters it what a body 
be named if it be the same thing ? What matters it 
whether the armed force be armed with muskets 
and bayonets, or sabres and bludgeons? Whether 
it be clad in red or blue, or dandy-grey-russet? 
Whether it be belted with black japanned leather, 
or with old, white, pipe-clayed leather? It is still 
armed force; a force foreign to and hostile to 

i 2 


an 



116 


GERMAN 


the Constitution; a force meant to overawe and 
influence elections for despotic purposes; a force 
which curtails the free exercise of the popular will, 
and ought, therefore, to be protested against by 
every honest man and honest political journal. In 
the present short duration of elections there is little 
danger of riot, and it is quite enough that there is 
a police in any town, and a military force near it, 
ready to be called on if danger of disturbances 
arises, without this Black Watch, these Metropo¬ 
litan heroes, being sent down. 

But these are only the more daring deeds of a 
system which has now taken deep root, and has 
become emboldened by the false security of the 
people. The system itself has been gradually 
progressing from the very first day that we im¬ 
ported German princes. Standing armies first, 
then a gradual widening of the distance between 
the army and the people, and finally, after the army 
had acquired its full growth and character, in our 
day this introduction of this second army of blud¬ 
geon bearers, the most dangerous, because the most 
lurking; and insinuating; of all. 

I shall not stop here to weigh what good may or 
does arise from a police. That is obvious to all, 
where a police is in number and employment what 
a police merely for preservation of order in the streets 
should be. Such a police will be comparatively 
limited in number, and will be located only where 
there is actually daily disturbance without it. The 


EXPERIENCES. 


117 


danger of a police is, that it may be employed by 
government, not for the suppression of disorder, 
but for the suppression of liberty. That, under 
pretext of the public safety, it may be pushed out 
on every side, be swelled fearfully in number, and 
set on the watch, not for pickpockets, but for 
patriots. Depend upon it that this will become 
the character of our police, if it be not curbed and 
kept down by the most jealous vigilance of the 
public. It will become the most fatal machine 
that was ever introduced into the framework of our 
society. It is of German origin, and will produce 
the same fruits in the country to which it has been 
transplanted, as it has done in its own. There it is 
one of various combined powers which have com¬ 
pletely robbed the nation of freedom; and we can¬ 
not do better than to examine what these are, and 
what the German people are under their operation, 
that we may have some notion which way we our¬ 
selves are going. 

o o 




118 


GERMAN' 


CHAPTER III. 


The Germans are by no means a slavishly dis¬ 
posed people. They were originally the great 
diffusers of freedom throughout Europe. From 
them, and the kindred races of Scandinavia, we 
ourselves derive our freest institutions, or the spirit 
which has originated them. To such a pitch did 
the ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, carry 
their ideas of liberty, that though they chose a leader 
in war, they considered themselves each naturally 
equal to him, and except for purposes of present 
general good, independent of him. He makes Am* 
biorix, the general of the Low Germans, say that 
he had no more power over the people than they 
had over him. He says further, that no man, 
properly speaking, ruled the Germans, they did 
justwhat they pleased; “Germanos non juberi,non 
regi, sed cuncta ex libidine agere.” When they 
conquered a country they divided the whole land 
equally, and as brothers, amongst them, and each 
man sat down on his Allod , or property, which 
he disdained to hold bv anv human tenure, but 
declared it his sun fief. That he held it of no power 





EXPERIENCES. 


119 


but the sun. Hence the latter form of title deed: 
“ This property received from God, and the glorious 
element of the sun.” Neither the state, nor the 
magistracy, nor any other authority, had a right to 
molest him in it, or to eject him from it. Every 
man’s house was more sacred than a church. 
Hence our principle and practice, hence our law 
proverb, that (i every man’s house is his castle.” 
To such an extent was this carried that when the 
community were compelled to punish offenders 
against it, they never would break open, under any 
circumstances, a door. The father exerted a sort 
of patriarchal authority in his own house; and 
each parish, or particular portion of a district, 
called a Gemeinde, or Landsgemeinde, common to 
all the land, assembled every new moon to deter¬ 
mine every thing relating to the weal and order of 
the district. Here every man spoke and judged 
with equal right, the priest only acting as chair¬ 
man. But there were others who disdained even 
this degree of coercion. They lived utterly free 
and independent on their allod, attended no meet¬ 
ings of the people, and acknowledged no power 
residing in them. These were termed Wildfange, 
or Biesterfreie; and of this class were the Ber¬ 
serkers of Scandinavia. When any of these men 
committed, therefore, any gross offence against the 
community, the community judged them as ene¬ 
mies, and punished them by stopping up their wells, 
by burning their houses over their heads, or by 



120 


GERMAN 


stripping off their ro.ofs; but they never allowed 
themselves to break open one of their doors. In 
short, they were as free as the wild creatures around 
them, as the birds above their heads. Freedom, 
said Lucan, is a German possession—libertas Ger- 
manicum bonum. “ It is marvellous,” said Florus, 
“that the Germans already inherit from Nature 
what the Greeks with all their arts never attained.” 
And our own Hume says, “ All that there is now 
in the world, of freedom, honour, generosity, and 
wealth, we owe to these magnanimous barbarians.” 

The Swiss and the Norwegians are the only 
people who retain the substance and most pri¬ 
mitive form of this ancient Germanic freedom. 
“ In Norway, from time immemorial,” says Mr. 
Laing, “ the finest and most populous institutions 
have existed, and it is probably from it that we 
have derived the trial by jury.” There is no 
people on the face of the earth whose present 
position can be contemplated with such heartfelt 
satisfaction as that of Norway, according to the 
description of Mr. Laing. To the present hour 
they have steadfastly held their ancient liberty. 
Though cast by the arbitrary politics of Europe 
into the regal dominance of Sweden, Norway still 
retains and maintains its free constitution, which 
makes the people personally independent of the 
Swedish power. There, every man still lives on 
his own land; there the press is as free as the 
winds; and what is most admirable, free from the 


EXPERIENCES. 


121 


foulest of all tyranny, the low tyranny of personal 
rancour. There not even an aristocracy can lift 
its head, it has been formally abolished, and the 
aristocracy of Nature, man in his worth and his 
virtuous dignity, possesses and enjoys his native 
land. Industrious, gay, domestic, and care free, so 
rolls on life in free, wise, and virtuous Norway, 
the happiest nook of Europe,— perhaps of the 
world. 

But it was not the fate of the main German race 
to maintain thus happily and honourably its liber¬ 
ties. With Charlemagne was carried their empire 
to its full extent — an empire embracing three- 
fourths of Europe, the various German States, 
France, Italy, Holland, and Belgium. The em¬ 
peror was elective, and limited in his prerogative. 
There long continued the form of freedom, but the 
seeds of despotism and dissolution were rapidly 
growing beneath the form. Charlemagne and his 
successors prided themselves on being at the head 
of the Roman empire. It was no longer the Ger¬ 
manic or the French, but the Homan Empire. 
The Roman law was introduced, with its secret 
courts, its protocols, and its torture. This system 
of executive government, so adapted to the pur¬ 
poses of tyrants, found tyrants in abundance to 
administer it. The various feudal nobles shot up 
into princes; they not only elected the Emperor, 
but they harassed him perpetually with their quar¬ 
rels and their frequent hostility. The vitals of the 


122 


GERMAN 


empire were from age to age rent by the vultures 
of discord. At length the great Thirty Years’ 
War, a war for the extirpation of Protestantism, 
ravaged the whole country to a frightful and un¬ 
paralleled degree. Order, freedom, arts and com¬ 
merce went to the ground, and many of these 
blessings never again fully regained their ancient 
growth. A host of petty tyrants were sprung into 
existence, each wielding the powers of life and 
death, and exerting more than kingly authority in 
their own districts. The great body of the popu¬ 
lation was agricultural, and an agricultural people 
is too scattered and unaccustomed to union and 
activity of mind, to resist the acts of usurpation. 
The history of the German Empire has been that 
of gradual concession on the part of the people, 
of steady aggression on that of the princes. The 
population of the cities were the exception, and 
their history is a splendid history of combination 
and bold maintenance of the banner of libertv. 

•r 

But they could not fire with their example the rural 
millions. 

At length, divided and subdivided into about 
two thousand provinces and independent petty 
states, the German Empire was become a perfect 
rope of sand. It was too tempting to the quick 
eye of Napoleon: he rushed over the country and 
laid it at his feet. The history of the princes at 
this crisis is very instructive. They rose, the chief 
of them, against their ow r n emperor, and fell into 


EXPERIENCES. 


123 


the ranks of the usurper; each regardless of the 
fate of his country, regardful only of how great a 
share of it he could seize on as his spoil. The 
smaller princes went to the ground; and so soon as 
the evil hour of Napoleon arrived, so soon as the 
elements had smitten him in Russia, and England, 
having annihilated his power in Spain, was await¬ 
ing him in France,—then these princes rose at once, 
bit the hand on which they had so lately fawned, 
heaped on their benefactor the names of Robber 
and Usurper, and called on the people to help to 
drive him from their soil, and to establish the 
freedom of Germany. It was an inspiring cry, 
and was nobly answered. The people freed Ger¬ 
many and the princes from the intruder, but how 
did the princes keep their faith as to the freedom 
of Germany? It stands written in the history of 
the time by their own historian, in a chapter headed 
“The Treachery of the Princes.” The ancient 
empire had been dissolved by Napoleon, and they 
took no step to restore it. Some had sprung out 
of grafs into princes, others out of princes into 
kings. The old empire and its constitution had 
expired ; and there was not a prince of them who, 
by the ancient right and the ancient principles of 
the German people, had a title to sovereign pow r er. 
They ought in this crisis to have turned to the old 
and only acknowledged source of power amongst 
the Germanic race—to the people, and have re¬ 
ceived constitutions from them. But on the con- 


124 


GERMAN 


trary, they, who had. been only the vassals of a 
limited monarch, the Emperor, claimed not only 
independencies, but a prerogative hitherto unknown 
in that country—that of absolute despotism. True, 
on the great battle-field of Leipsic, where, after a 
three days’ fight, the Nations had enabled them 
to overwhelm the tyrant, the Allied Sovereigns 
knelt down and publicly thanked God. They 
thanked God, and promised free representative 
constitutions! But like the vows of sick men, 
these promises were soon forgotten. Had Napo¬ 
leon continued a little longer in Elba, probably 
their fears might have wrung from them a com¬ 
pliance with the now loud demands of the people, 
for the fulfilment of their word; but Napoleon 
made his last unsuccessful sally, the English bore 
him away to St. Helena, and their fears and pro¬ 
mises slept for ever. 

The history of the struggles of the German 
people to rescue their ancient freedom from the 
grasp of these perfidious usurpers, since the peace 
of 1815, is a melancholy one. The dungeons of 
Austria, as described by Silvio Pellico, the perse¬ 
cution of patriots, who have been compelled to fly 
to Switzerland, France, England, and America, the 
suppression of the freedom of the press, the violent 
crushing together of churches, the absolute denial 
of free constitutions, and the jealous espionage of 
a universal police, are amongst its prominent fea¬ 
tures. The 13th article of the Confederation, 


EXPERIENCES. 


125 


made by these princes on the 8th of June 1815, 
declared, “That in all the confederated states, 
representative constitutions should be established;” 
the 16th, “That all religious bodies should enjoy 
equal civil rights and privileges; ” and the 18th, 
“guaranteed uniform freedom of the press.” Not 
one of these pledges, thus solemnly made, have 
been fulfilled ; on the contrary, a tighter hand has 
been laid on the reins of government; the press 
is held in the closest thraldom, and the violent 
suppression of the Lutherian church in Prussia is 
one of the foulest acts of religious persecution 
which modern times have to shew. 

And do the Germans acquiesce calmly in all 
this? No! their situation presents the most sin¬ 
gular and most admonitory spectacle in all history. 
A people of sixty millions in number; a people, of 
all others most sensitive; a people singing brave 
songs, and using brave words, and cherishing 
brave thoughts of liberty,—yet without the daring 
and the moral firmness to set themselves free! 
Idle parents of liberty in Europe, and at the present 
day the most thoroughly enslaved. They have 
fallen from the high estate of the freest and most 
high-spirited people of ancient Europe, to the most 
pliant crouchers, to the yoke of the diplomatist 
of present Europe. One shout of actual resolve 
from these millions would scatter every throne, 
and make every bond crumble into dust; nay, 
closely woven as the net of diplomacy is around 


126 


GERMAN 


them, were there but the lion within it, a mouse 
were enough to set it free; but the habit of acqui¬ 
escence has become the really enslaving chain of this 
great and intellectual people. Like other dreams, 
they dream of freedom, but feel that they have lost 
the power to move. The will to dare, to do or 
die, the only spirit by which a nation can assert or 
maintain its liberties, has evaporated; they have 
become accustomed to the shame of living without 
political freedom, and they find that they can live, 
in great bodily comfort, with the glory of their 
great ancestors behind them, and the hereditary 
bondage of their children before them. The pad¬ 
lock is on their mouths; they cannot speak; yet 
they are glad that it allows them to breathe. The 
arm is shackled, but they can walk about; and 
they are willing to walk, though it be with “ the 
iron in their souls.” They fret and fume, but do 
not free themselves! Miserable condition of exist¬ 
ence ! Let us take a nearer and warning view 
of it. 


EXPERIENCES. 


1*27 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. 


It is one of the very oldest practices of thieves to 
gag their victims. To plunder and prevent all 

outcrv and alarm need but a bit of stick or a 

•> 

piece of rag. Despotic princes have very properly 
classed themselves as-belonging to the generation 
of thieves, by universally adopting this practice. 
Thev have shewn that God has not left them 
without a living witness in themselves of what they 
really are,—the very greatest and most flagrant of 
their genus—of thieves and murderers. They rob 
not individuals, but nations ; they murder not men 
only, but liberty and knowledge, and through these, 
men’s souls. They demonstrate at once, that 
what they are about is not a thing agreeable to 
those whom they are set to govern ; that is, in its 
proper signification, to serve and protect; that 
their intentions, any more than their actions, will 
not bear the light, and the voice of expostulation 
is confessed by the gag. But of all mouths which 
they most diligently close by propping open, if I 
may use an Iricism, is the mouth of that modern 
steel-clad champion, the Press. This is their most 






128 


GERMAN 


terrific enemy. His voice is not confined to the 
room within which he stands, but is heard beyond 
the reach of any trumpet, or the bruit of any 
cannon. Nay, the very thunder of heaven is not 
so terrific, or so far-pealing, as the “ still, small 
voice ” of the press. The first object of all despots 
therefore, is, as soon as possible, to gag this grand 
antagonist power. To utterly destroy it, is more 
than they dare attempt—that were too much for 
the patience of mankind. To utterly chain up its 
mouth, would be as little tolerated. They have 
therefore adopted the gag. They leave the press 
a mouth, out of which may drop just what Balaam 
they please. It is a well-known fact, that if you 
gag a fish you drown him. Prop his mouth open, 
and he cannot move his gills. To kill even a fish, 
it is not necessary to pluck him out of the water 
with a hook, or spear him in it; you have only to 
prop his mouth open, and he dies gradually. This 
is the death to which despotic monarchs and go¬ 
vernments have doomed the press. The gag they 
have adopted is—the Censor. 

What the effect of this gagging of the press is, 
happily we at home have no sufficient idea. The 
attempt has been made in this country, but. has 
always failed. Englishmen have known that to 
them the Press is the Modern Magna Charta, 
ten thousand times more precious and availing than 
that of King John. Destroy every trace of that 
bit of parchment, annihilate every record and testi- 





I 

EXPERIENCES. 1*29 

mony of our constitution and long glorious conflict 
for our liberties, and the press shall speedily build 
us up a new charter, a new constitution, and new 
liberties. It is the soul of our souls, and the mouth 
of our mouths. It is the grand sum total of thirty 
millions of spirits; nay, of the spirits of all our 
past generations; of all our poets, our patriots, 
philosophers, and divines, combined into one power, 
and is therefore more than all constitutions, all 
poetry or patriotism. It is a condensation of the 
universal intellect and of divine revelation into 
invincible potency, and into a sun more eternal 
and victorious in its darkness-scattering energy 
than that of one particular system. It is alive with 
the power, and speaks with the united voice of 
God the Saviour, and of mankind. Its strength 
lies not in the metallic wheels and levers, nor even 
in the steam by which it often is impelled, but 
in its heart and in its brain; for these are the heart 
and the brain of collective humanity. Nero wished 
that he had all the necks of mankind combined 
in one neck, that he might cut off the heads of the 
whole human race at one blow; but in the press 
Ave have the heads of all mankind united to cut off, 
as it will do eventually, the heads of all tyrants and 
traitors to the sacred cause of man, of truth, and 
of love. But we have more than the heads of 
all men combined here; we have the invincible 
intellect and the heart of man, twin and heaven- 
born powers; and the press has its throbs and 

K 


130 


GERMAN 


its pulsations. It beats with the great heart of 
human nature; its nerves thrill with feelings sent 
from every quarter of the globe. It stands not 
on the earth; it is rooted into it. Its wood is 
living, and is the tree of life; and every stroke 
and pressure which it gives are impelled by our 
own hearts, our affections, our hopes, and our 
triumphant anticipations of an unquenchable life. 
Who shall dare to stand before this mighty instru¬ 
ment—this champion and representative of uni¬ 
versal man? None but princes who have been 
fooled and flattered into the idea that they them¬ 
selves are something more than mortal. Yet even 
these have rarely dared the attempt to destrov it. 
They have contented themselves with that of gagging 
it. And as that which is divine, once fallen, becomes 
demoniac, what a pestilence-breathing machine 
becomes a gagged and misguided press. Of all 
melancholy objects, what so melancholy as a press 
languid with everlasting gagging, and doing the 
dirty work of pettyfogging ministers. It is Pega¬ 
sus plucked from his heavenly path, and drawing 
with soiled wings, in the boor’s cart, as sketched by 
Retzsch. 

If any one will see what is the difference between 
a free and a gagged press, let him look upon that 
of our country, and then on that of Germany—a 
country full of intellectual power and speculative 
spirit. Ours is all life, activity, and nervous 
vigour. There is nothing which concerns us, or 






EXPERIENCES. 


131 


our interests, which it does not seize on, discuss, 
and sift to the very bottom, pursuing error and 
jesuitism through all their subtlest windings, and 
laying the conquered and demonstrated truth on 
the common bosom of the community. Nor is 
it only in the newspapers that it thus lives and 
wrestles; but it diffuses its spirit, and in fact, gives 
life to journals and reviews, such as no other 
country can boast. It pours out its light and 
warmth on all sides, animating that daring and 
discursive temperament which makes us discoverers, 
conquerors, and founders of mighty nations—the 
spinners, weavers, merchants, and caterers for a 
world. There is no offender, however high, who 
can hope to escape from the castigations of our 
press, even if it cannot pluck him all at once from 
the seat of his iniquity; there is no matter or cha¬ 
racter that is hidden in the deepest tracks of life, 
or its obscurest nooks, which it does not pour its 
radiance upon. In short, like “ a mighty heart,” 
which it is, it sends that blood and glow through 
our whole social system, w r hich makes us what we 
are, an indefatigable, enterprising, and great people. 
Look on the opposite scene, that of the German 
so-called political press. How r flat and dead in all 
that relates to the most important topics of a national 
character. The newspapers present a conglomera¬ 
tion of dry facts, relating generally far more to other 
nations than their own. The affairs of China and 
India are discussed with considerable interest, those 

k 2 


132 


GERMAN 


of their own states are passed over. All those 
great questions which involve the political progress 
and development of a people form no part of their 
topics, these are reserved for the sole consideration 
and management of the government. Even the 
best journal they possess, the Allgerneine Zeitung, 
gives you no clue to such matters, though it gives 
you admirable articles on books, and merely lite¬ 
rary, philosophical, or politico-economical subjects. 
Periodicals, in our sense of the word, they have 
few, except annuals. For over all the heads of 
such journals hangs the iron pen of the censor, and 
fills every writer with terror. Such things as 
Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews, as Black¬ 
woods and Taits, cannot exist, because the contest 
of such principles as animate them is not permitted, 
and without the contest even the spiciest absolu¬ 
tism loses its relish. Into their very books of 
literature the deadening influence finds its way. 
The novel of the day—how shall it describe ac¬ 
tualities, and touch off the living characteristics of 
high life and fashionable personages ? The censor 
is before the soul of the writer; and if his great 
steel pen did not strike the life out of his volumes, 
the myrmidons of the police would march into the 
publisher’s warehouse, and condemn the whole 
stock, after its contents had become known. Even 
Otto Wigand’s Jahr-Buch of last year can attest 
that. For this reason, our novels and romances, 
and those of France, are the general reading of the 
light-reading class. 




EXPERIENCES. 


133 


Let our writers for the newspaper and periodical 
press imagine tlial whatever they wrote must be 
submitted to a literary policeman , seated immoveably 
by the desk of every editor. That it was the busi¬ 
ness of this literary policeman to take into custody 
every free thought and plan which should be thrown 
out for the better government of the country, for 
the redress of any grievance personal or public. 
That this fellow, with an iron pen instead of a 
bludgeon, was empowered to knock down, run 
through, or put out the eyes of every such free 
thought, or thought of justice and improvement,*— 
that he could do this without any one having the 
power to judge whether he did it with any degree 
of moderation or decency; that he did it in perfect 
privacy. That such thoughts could never reach 
the daylight, and call for the help and protection 
of the public, but must be hidden like an untimely 
birth,—with what heart could he write? How, 
when the spirit of inspiration came upon him, and 
his pen had dashed out some great and glowing 
ideas, would the sudden recollection of the lurking 
censor, the literary policeman, the bloody and 
remorseless political spider, who had spun his web 
before the editor’s desk to catch all such soaring 
and humming intellectual flies, startle and freeze 
him ? How 'would he begin to carry a secret fear 
of this always before him? How would it lame 
his pen? how would it paralyse his mind? If his 
mind was of a nature to sink before such terrors; 


134 


GERMAN 


if he could learn to crouch and creep, what a 
creeping thing would he soon become, fit for the 
office of literary policeman himself, when the old 
one dropped off. If he were not of this nature, 
two things only would remain for him,—to fling 
down his pen, and leave it and his country to their 
fate, or to run for ever into the clinging web of the 
enemy. To see his finest thoughts and feelings, 
his noblest speculations, even when most cautiously 
worded, dashed out, the most frightful chasms 
made in his most elaborate articles, or his article 
altogether suppressed. 

These are the constant state of mind, experiences, 
and mortifications of the finest spirits of Germany. 
The labour of months, and the deepest and most 
anxious research, often too when employed on 
subjects where with all their experience they did 
not suspect the paw of the censor, are continually 
sacrificed. What curses “ low but deep ” have I 
not heard uttered by some of these sufferers of this 
galling, this most galling of all thraldoms, the 
thraldom of the mind: over this indignity that the 
able and the generous must suffer at the hands of 
the secret hangman of the press! Some of these 
men travel, and would impart the improvements of 
other countries; they come to England, and would 
speak of our social institutions and our mechanical 
arts, but in the midst of their most innocent lucubra¬ 
tions on such matters, the eye of the censor sees 
danger, his pen dashes the prohibiting strokes 



EXPERIENCES. 


135 


through the very heart of their articles, so that 
no skill nor ingenuity can again give connexion or 
sense to the whole. It is the same in translation ; 
the light of other countries is carefully shut out, 
and the poet, filled only with the sublime ideas of 
some brother bard of a foreign nation, forgets the 
censor, but the censor does not forget him. 

I will give a specimen of such suppression. The 
following translation of Campbell’s spirited “ Ode 
to the Germans,” made by one of the most celebrated 
lyric poets of that country, was stopped in the press 
by the censor. It has never seen the light in Ger¬ 
many, but was presented to me by its honoured 
and most popular translator, that it might at least 
see it in England. The name of the translator I 
may not give, or it would be sure to work woe on 
the other side of the water. 


ODE AN DIE DEUTSCHEN. 

NACH THOMAS CAMPBELL. 


Meeriiber ruft Britannia 

Der Schwester Deutschland zu ; 
Wach auf, O Allemannia. 

Bricli deine ketten, du! 

Bei’m Blut, das uns zu Br'ddern macht, 
Allemannen, auf erwacht! 



136 


GERMAN 


Und dreimal geheiligt sei 
Unsrer Herzen heiiig Band, 

Wenn uns zujauchzt endlich frei 
Euer Land—euer Land! 

Britannia durch die Meere 

Schwingt der Freiheit Banner hoch; 
Euer ‘ breiter Stein der Ehre’ 

1st ein Sklavenzwinger noeh! 

O Schmach ! des alten Ruhms gedacht ! 
Allemannen, auf erwacht! 

Und die jetzt euch fesselt;—bleich 
Fliichten wird die Tyrannei 
Wenn sich aufrafft euer Reich 
Gross und frei—gross und frei. 

Dem Mars habt ihr erfunden 
Den Donnerkeil der Schlacht, 

Doch die Kett’ um euere Wunden 
Hat kein Donner noch zerkracht. 

Land des Gedankens! soli dein Herz 
Reiben stets der Fessel Erz? 

Nein ! die Sclilaguhr, hell von Schall, 
Die ihr sinnend euch gebaut, 

Schlage der Unterdrucker Fall 
Dreist und laut—dreist und laut! 

Der Presse Zaubersegen 

Auch ihn gab euer Land,— 

Doch darf sie sich denn regen 
Auf dem Grund, der sie erfand? 
Wohlan denn, schmettern muss das Horn 
Fiihlen muss das Ross den Sporn ! 

Ernst herab auf ihr Geschlecht 
Sieht der Vater stolze Reih’, 

Ruft und winkt euch: “ Ins Gefecht! 
Werdet frei—werdet frei! ” 






EXPERIENCES. 


137 


Can any man wonder how the noblest spirits of 
a nation must writhe, and inwardly bleed, under so 
ignominious a bondage? How the ignoble must 
become the worst tools of tyranny? Who can tell 
bow far the base passions of the base minds—for 
base they must be who accept the office of secret 
stranglers of thought—may be carried? How far 
personal malice and jealousy, how far the infamous 
desire of self-interest, may lead such men to please 
the official powers by a rigid severity, or themselves 
by a wanton exercise of the strange license com¬ 
mitted to them? Who shall say how gross igno¬ 
rance, or the envious love of crushing whatever is 
beautiful and aspiring, may operate in them—to 
what ravages in the fair field of purely imaginative 
literature itself it may urge them on? Who can 
tell what irreparable wounds and losses a nation 
has suffered at such hands? Genius secretly criti¬ 
cised and, damned by a police! We have seen in 
our own free country strange freaks enough of 
criticism in the broad daylight, and that from men 
of genius themselves; but policemen, installed by 
government authority, and the chair of judgment 
set in the dark—God help the writers of such a 
country! Who can wonder that they have become 
so dreamy, and so fond of metaphysics? Whither 
else could their spirits turn for a free region, but 
into that of shadows and abstractions? Who can 
wonder, as their own historian, Wolfgang Menzel, 
says, if “ over God they forget men; over heaven, 


138 


GERMAN 


the earth; over dreams, actuality; over castles in 
the air, the dirt of cottages; over pictures, the 
living shapes of misery; over the study of ancient 
justice, the daily prevailing injustice; over the 
freedom of the ancient Greeks, the loss of their 
own. That the scholar knew all the islands of 
Australia, but not his fatherland; and had num¬ 
bered the hairs in a camel’s tail before he knew 
an oak-tree from a beech. That the philosophers 
shrouded themselves in a dark phraseology, and 
by artful combinations rivalled each other in won¬ 
derful mysteries, and made inexplicable enigmas out 
of originally simple ideas; till the whole world 
began to despise such useless abstractions and 
fantasticalities; and turned to physical realities, of 
benefit to the whole community—manufactures, 
trade, steam-engines, and railroads.” 

But these are only the least mischiefs of this 
gagging system, and this only one form of it. Let 
us see another. 




EXPERIENCES. 


139 


CHAPTER V. 


THE POLICE SYSTEM. 


The government, having set a watch and a turn¬ 
key over the press, next set others over all strivings 
of thought in daily life. The standing army—a 
power ostensibly for the terror of enemies without, 
but actually still more for the numerous host of 
enemies within, for to the conscious tyrant every free 
subject is an enemy,—had in no country acquired 
a more formidable growth and influence than in Ger¬ 
many. The total amount of the army in the Con¬ 
federate States is not less than a million and a half. 
This is an awful power, to turn against any uneasy 
spirits, any restless movements under the iron 
hand of arbitrary rule. But this was not enough, 
and a second army was called into being,—an army 
of policemen. These men were also ostensibly 
organized to preserve order in the streets, but 
more truly to keep down the spirits of the free- 
minded. They were not armed with the terrors 
of cannon and musket, except that detachment of 
them called gens-d’armes, but merely with a sword, 
and the more awe-inspiring power—pen and paper. 
They were, however, an army, and nothing less, an 




140 


GERMAN 


army of domestic control. Their watchhouse was 
not merely a place for a lazy sentinel or two to 
parade before, or where the military band, at stated 
hours might assemble and beat off a fine martial 
tune; but it became a watchhouse indeed—a den of 
many silent sub-dens,—where there was a strange, 
mysterious, sleepy-seeming rustle of papers, but 
where, in reality, all eyes were w r ide awake, and 
were sent abroad into every nook and retirement 
of the whole community. The people soon found 
that the police bureau was a genuine geometric 
spider’s web, which extends its filmy lines in such 
ingenious radiations, and in circle beyond circle, 
that there was not one of them whom these lines 
did not at some one point touch. Whether they 
were at home or abroad, stationary or journeying, 
sleeping or waking, in company or alone, the 
police knew what they were doing almost better, 
and indeed often better, than themselves. They 
were like so many birds with strings to their legs, 
allowed to hop about occasionally in the sunshine, 
but never to escape. They might get under bushes, 
or amongst the green leaves up in the tree, or on 
the house-tops; but still the string was on the leg, 
and gave them every now and then a good admo¬ 
nitory twinge. If they travelled, it was only to 
drag the string after them in the shape of a pass¬ 
port; if they went into their closet, the policeman 
could follow them on a score of pretexts. This 
states’ inquisition penetrated to the fireside, and into 



EXPERIENCES. 


141 


the whole domestic life of every man. There w r as 
a list of every man made out, and his character 
attached to it, for private uses. No journeyman 
could travel to the nearest city without a passport, 
and without his Wanderbook. Every maid-servant 
must have a book containing the testimonies of her 
behaviour from her mistress, and it must be depo¬ 
sited there. If a man wanted to marry, he must 
first have permission of the police ; and a grave 
fellow, in a collarless coat, and with a sword by 
his side, would march off to his beloved, demand 
an account of all her worldly goods, having 
first done so by the man himself; and if he found 
that the proposed bride had not a prescribed sum, 
would endow her with a certain portion of her 
lover’s. If, however, the lover had not a definite 
amount of worldly goods, in many states, he could 
not be allowed to take her as wife at all. This is 
most strictly carried out in Bavaria; and the con¬ 
sequence is that people take the liberty of living 
together without marrying, and the population 
returns shew a strange exhibition of illegitimate 
children, often exceeding the number of the legiti¬ 
mates. Nay, you could no longer marry, be born, 
or be buried, without a police regulation. Are 
you dead, then comes the policeman and the police- 
doctor to see that you are really dead; and if so you 
shall have a coffin according to the due formula of 
the police, and shall be buried on the third day. 
There is a prescribed coffin, and a prescribed size, 


142 


GERMAN 


for every age and station. If a person happen not 
to be of the right size, he or she can at his own 
extra expense have a coffin of a proper size, but it 
must be put into the legally prescribed coffin. 
Friends of ours had an infant of a few days old 
which died. They began to give orders for the 
coffin and the funeral, but were told that they 
could not interfere in that —that was all regulated 
by the state. Notice was given of the fact, and the 
public doctor came and made his inspection, taking 
his police-prescribed fee. Then came the legal 
manager of the whole business of the funeral, with 
his police directions, by which it was found that all 
funerals were divided into five classes, out of which 
the persons concerned might chose the class to 
which it should belong, and all the rest the Manager 
of Funerals ordered. The parents found that they 
could not order a coffin themselves, that, as well as 
every thing else, was already prescribed, and could 
be made only by the authorized joiner, and that 
there was in fact a legal coffin magazine. The 
coffin came, but it was much too large; it was 
answered that it was according to the regulations, 
for all children under six years there was but one 
size; but you could have one made by the public 
coffin-maker of the size you required, which, like 
every thing else, would be charged at a fixed price, 
and would be put inside of the regularly appointed 
one ! In fact every thing of this kind is so exactly 
and completely laid down, each particular with its 





EXPERIENCES. 


143 


legal tarif, that I will present the bill itself (trans¬ 
lated) to my readers. 

Bill for the costs of the funeral of the child 

of Mr.-, deceased, in this place, and buried 

according to the first class of the funeral regu¬ 
lations :— 



For Adults. 

For Chil¬ 
dren trotn 
fito 15 years. 

For Chil¬ 
dren under 
6 years. 





Police Tax. 

Police Tax. 

Police Tax. 

1 For the attendance of the 

FI* * 

Kr.t 

FI. 

Kr. 

FI. 

Kr. 

Clergyman - 

1 

30 

1 

30 

1 

30 

2 Manager of Funerals - - 

3 Announcer of the Death, 


36 

— 

36 

— 

36 

and Bidder to theFuneral 

4 

— 

2 

— 

2 

— 

4 Layer-out, man or woman 

4 

— 

2 

— 

2 

30 

5 His or her Deputy - - - 

1 

-— 

— 

48 

— 

48 

6 Gravedigger - - - - 

2 

24 

1 

30 

1 


7 Coffin . 

14 

— 

8 

— 

4 

— 

8 Shroud ------ 

2 

— 

1 

— 

1 

— 

9 Hearse . 

3 

— 

3 

— 

2 

— 

10 Mourning Coach - - - 

3 

— 

3 

— 

2 

— 

11 Four Bearers (1 flo. each) 

4 

— 

3 

12 

— 

— 

12 Cost of the Funeral Bill - 

— 

3 

— 

3 

— 

3 

Total - - - 

39 

33 

26 

39 

17 

27 


The free choice of this class attested. 

The Receipt of 15 florins, 5 kreuzers, attested. 

Gottfried Bauen. 


At the back of this bill you have a copy of all 
the police regulations connected with the business 
of a funeral. These are fifteen in number; and 
they are so curious, that I shall notice a few of 

m ' 

* Florin, twenty-pence, 
t Kreuzer, one-third of a penny. 
































144 


GERMAN 


them, not only for the gratification of the general 
reader, but for the gratification of the honourable 
profession of undertakers in this country. It must 
be particularly interesting to them to see how they 
would be tied up, hand and foot, under a paternal 
government, and would be only allowed to follow 
their calling in such numbers, and in such a manner 
as government prescribed, with the bill already made 
out for them. 

The first regulation is, that the cost of every thing 
shall be fixed; that there are, as observed, five 
classes of funeral requisites, out of which the 
friends of the deceased must choose one. The 
tax-list for this will be handed in, and must be 
signed by the orderer. Any ceremonies, or attend¬ 
ance out of the ordinary routine, such as a funeral 
sermon, attendance of more clergymen, may be 
ordered of the procurator, or manager of funerals, 
who will enter the same at their fixed cost in the 
bill. The coffin is to be delivered from the 
magazine at the house, quite ready, without further 
charge. If the parties want it pitching, which 
in general is not considered necessary, the charge 
is 40 kreuzers (sixteen-pence), but in the University 
Hospital, only 30 kreuzers, i.e. ten-pence. The 
very cross, the little black cross of deal, which 
is stuck on a new-made grave, is to be procured at 
the police magazine, and at its fixed charge by law, 
24 kreuzers, eight-pence. All funerals of the three 
first classes must be accompanied by a mourning- 



EXPERIENCES. 


145 


coach, even though the procession shall go on foot; 
and only the two last classes are allowed to omit 

•r 

this. All funeral service and evening tolling of the 
bell are forbidden, except by particular permission 
of the President of the Board of Funeral Com¬ 
missioners. The tolling of bells has its exact tax— 
as two bells, 2s. Sd.; three bells, 6s. Sc/.; five bells, 
7s. 6d. But different towns, and even different 
churches, have different charges; but all fixed by the 
police tarif. Even the very way the funeral shall 
go is prescribed. The funeral procession shall 
take the most direct way from the house to the 
cemetery. The number of persons to be bidden 
may be forty, at the regular fee to the bidder; all 
exceeding this number at a further fixed price. All 
demands beyond these fixed, by any party, or the 
demand from the friends of the deceased of even 
their fixed fees, by the prescribed conductors of 
a funeral, are strictly forbidden; no one can make 
any demand but the procurator, and he only by his 
bill, according to the regular tarif. 

Such are the minute regulations by which the 
German police enter into this and every other of 
your domestic transactions. You are treated as 
so many great children who cannot take care of 
yourselves, and so the government, by its numerous 
agents, the police, becomes your general guardian, 
bailiff, and beadle. It takes care that you do not 
burn your house, and it sweeps your chimneys for 
you. The police can come at night, and demand 

L 


146 


GERMAN 


an entrance to see whether you have carefully ex¬ 
tinguished all your fires, and such a thing as a 
person ordering his chimney to be swept is never 
dreamed of. That were a piece of free-will indeed ! 
No, all this is prescribed and done for you. The 
appointed sweeps, at their fixed times, enter your 
house, sweep all your chimneys, make the proper 
charge, and away again. It is no use telling 
them that they do not want doing, or have not been 
used,—it is the time, and they must be done. We 
were the first tenants of a new house, and the legal 
sweeps actually came and swept all the chimneys 
within ten days of the house being occupied, and 
before some of them had had a fire in them. We 
appealed to the landlord; he only shook his head, 
“ it is the time, and they will certainly do it.” 

Some of these regulations strike oddly against 
our old established poetical ideas. A serenade is 
a very poetical and romantic thing in one’s un¬ 
practised brain. A lover standing silently on a 
summer night beneath the balcony or the window 
of his beloved one, and amid the odour of flowers 
and the songs of nightingales, singing to his guitar 
a charming lay of love,—O how many youthful 
imaginations has it fired! how many poetical pens 
has it put in motion! But hear, young enthu¬ 
siasts,—hear, poets and poetesses,—your lover must 
get a license from the police-office before he dare 
either raise his song, or thumb his guitar! Yes, I 
know not whether this be the cold reality of things 






EXPERIENCES. 


147 


in Spain and Laly, in the Austrian states of Italy 
assuredly it is,—but in Germany that is the fact. 
No one is allowed to sing at all in the streets after 
a certain hour,—eleven, I believe, at night. Who¬ 
ever, therefore, intends to give a serenade must, 
and does, first procure permission from the police! 

And what, indeed, must he not get permission 
for from the police? What the Germans call 
Schreiberei, Scribbling, has grown up to a most 
amazing extent under this system. The police- 
office has its long paper of printed regulations on 
all possible subjects, with all its fines and taxes 
appended; and nothing can be more amusing to 
an observer, though often most provoking to the 
parties concerned, than to see how fresh English 
are continually knocking their heads against these 
restrictions, prescriptions, proscriptions, laws, regu¬ 
lations, ordinances,—descending to the most insig¬ 
nificant and unexpected things. Let us take an 
actual case, witnessed by myself. 

An Englishman is just arrived in a German 
town, with half-a-dozen youths under his care, for 
the finishing: of their education. Some of these 
vouths are nearly grown to manhood. They have 
their guns and pistols, and practise at a mark, or 
at birds in their tutor’s garden. A flock of spar¬ 
rows settles on a tree, they fire at them. A man 
in a neighbouring garden raises his head and gazes 
sternly and significantly at them. Presently arrives 
a policeman, with a long printed paper of regula¬ 
rs 2 




148 


GERMAN 


tions against the shooting of birds, with all the 
pains and penalties. The youths lay aside the 
fowling-piece, and amuse themselves with shooting 
at the sparrows with pellets of putty, sent from a 
sarbacan or blow-gun, blown by the mouth. Pre¬ 
sently appears again the grave servant of justice, 
with another long printed paper, shewing how 
strictly it is forbidden to kill singing birds, with a 
list of those which are decided by the wisdom of 
government to be singing birds, and the various 
fines for such offences, mounting up in severity 
from a tomtit to a nightingale, the penalty for 
whose death is five florins, or eight and four-pence. 
Guns and blow-guns being thus spiked by the 
police, the unfortunate youths betook themselves 
into the open wood behind the house, where they 
supposed they could molest no one, and amused 
themselves with firing at a mark with a pistol. At 
the very first crack, however, out steps a wood - 
policeman, in his long drab coat with green collar, 
seizes the pistol, pockets it, and walks off. As¬ 
tounded at this proceeding, the youths for some 
time desisted from all sorts of shooting; but 
tempted one day by a handsome brass cannon in 
a shop window in the city, (what do these shop¬ 
keepers sell little brass cannons for?) they imme¬ 
diately conclude that with cannons you may shoot. 
People do not shoot singing birds at all events 
with cannon. They therefore bought the cannon, 
and to avoid all possible offence, they carried it into 




EXPERIENCES. 


149 


the mountains, and far up there, in a rocky hol¬ 
low, they commenced firing their cannon at a mark 
on the wall of a precipice. Bang goes the little 
cannon, back it flies with the shock,—out starts a 
policeman, and puts it in his pocket! 

The patience of the youths was now exhausted. 
They demanded, “ What! cannot we even fire a 
child’s cannon?” The reply was, “ Nein, das ist am 
strengsten verboten.” “No, that is most strictly 
forbidden.” The youths, with English spirit, pro¬ 
tested against the seizure of their cannon. “ Good! 
good!” was the answer, and the next day they 
were summoned to the Amthouse, and, on the 
clearest shewing of the printed regulations, fined 
ten shilling's. 

Many of these regulations are in themselves 
admirable. The care even over singing birds shews 
a fine and humane spirit; it reminds one of the 
providence of Him who “ cares even for sparrows.” 
The tarifs of charges on all kinds of costs, on law¬ 
yers’ and doctors’ fees, are of so reasonable a rate 
as would frighten our professional gentlemen into 
a shivering fit. And then the advocates of free 

trade? They could not move a yard. The cob- 
*/ •/ 

webs of the public regulations would hem them in 
on all sides, and drive them mad; and they who 
had imagined themselves long to have ceased to be 
children would be no little astonished to find them¬ 
selves treated as such, and acted for as such, by 
the paternal government. 

It will be seen that the German police system 


150 


GERMAN 


differs widely as yet from ours. The care of streets 
and public order is left pretty much to the gensdar- 
merie. The Board of Police, however, watches 
vigilantly over the existing order of things, and 
mixes itself in a variety of matters, which in this 
country get into the hands of the lawyers. In this 
particular, we might, for public benefit, most ad¬ 
vantageously imitate the Germans, by submitting 
the decision of a great number of questions between 
man and man to a magistrate, who, on the basis 
of clear regulations, might at the cost of a few 
shillings, and often in five or ten minutes, settle 
differences, or put a stop to impositions, which our 
lawyers continue to spin out into the most perplexed 
and ruinous litigations. On several occasions, 
where in England I should be coolly told by a 
magistrate that “ it was not his business,—I might 
commence an action,” which sort of action, by the 
bye, is generally the most foolish action a man can 
commit,—I have walked into the Police Bureau, 
and found my complaints most promptly redressed. 

This department of a foreign police, however, 
we have at present no disposition to adopt, but 
rather that of surveillance and espionage. That 
species of police which Austria has most preemi¬ 
nently employed, and which most other German 
states have sufficiently copied, one of the numerous 
pieces of network thrown over the people, all whose 
controlling ends meet in the hands of government, 
and which have not failed to infuse into the public 
mind the most fatal political and moral timidity. 



EXPERIENCES. 


151 


A NOTE ON ENGLISH BURIAL APPARATUS 
AND EXPENSES. 

As my observations are addressed to my coun¬ 
trymen for their benefit, I must take the oppor¬ 
tunity here of appending a few additional remarks 
to those in this chapter on burials, and of saying 
that, although most decidedly opposed to the finger 
of government being put into such matters, it is 
high time that government did in this country do 
what is its bounden duty, provide ample and 
suitable free cemeteries for the burial of the people. 
It will be seen that in Germany no charge whatever 
is made for the ground to bury in, unless a person 
or family wishes to purchase a plot in perpetuity, 
which itself costs very little indeed. Now, these 
cemeteries ought not to be left to a set of greedy 
speculators, who look rather at the gain to them¬ 
selves than the advantage to the public. It is the 
proper business of a government not to undertake 
such speculations itself, but to protect the people 
from rapacity of those who do. This it of late 
years has done, by restricting the per centage on 
highway and railway shares, etc., and this it should 
carry out in other cases. The spirit of gain is 
carried to such a pitch in this country, that public 


152 


GERMAN 


companies, unless restrained by act of parliament, 
may be said never to consider anything but how to 
get the most out of the public. Through this our 
highways are saddled with an everlasting debt, and 
shareholders have pocketed more above a due per 
centage for their money than would have, twice 
over, paid off the whole highway debt. A fine 
specimen of such unconscionable regard to self 
and not to the public is, that original 100/. shares 
of the New River Water-Company now sell at 
22,000/. each !! Surely these worthy shareholders 
should be compelled by government to afford their 
water to the metropolis at a very much lower rate 
than they do, when this present rate has enabled 
them to raise the value of their shares to 22,000 
times their original value !!! 

The same spirit is more largely afloat in Ceme¬ 
tery speculations. In Mr. Chadwick’s report, on 
the practice of burial in towns, it is justly stated by 
the Rev. Mr. Milman, that nothing is so repugnant 
to our feelings, as the seeking to make money by 
jobbing in Joint-stock Burial and Cemetery Com¬ 
panies. Yet there is nothing so disgusting as the 
eagerness with which this kind of speculation is 
carried on. No sooner do you now get into a 
house in the neighbourhood of London, than 
amongst the crowd of tradesmen who press for your 
custom comes the agent of the Cemetery Company. 
He sends in his company’s statement of charges, 


EXPERIENCES. 


153 


and gives you thus a most intelligible hint of how 
much he wants to bury you. The baker and butcher 
and grocer want extremely to keep you alive, but 
the Cemetery Company wants nothing so much 
as your death and burial. Of all the disgusting 
and impudent forms in which the trading spirit 
has vet shewed itself, this is the most intolerable. 
And what do these honourable companies offer 
their ground at? They make a pretty enough sort 
of a burial-ground, as if they would say, “See 
what a nice garden w r e have made to plant you in. 
Do, good fellow, make haste and die, or we cannot 
realize our cent, per cent.” But when you get 
their bill of charges, the thing is not quite so attrac¬ 
tive. Here are the charges of a company whose 
printed circular was sent into my house the other 
day. To say nothing of vaults of from 126/., down 
to a niche for a single coffin in one at 10/. 10s., 
with fees for interment, 4/. 4s.; of brick graves 
in the open ground, at from twenty to thirty 
guineas, and four guineas fees; burying a child in 
a catacomb at six guineas; the cost of a private 
grave in the open ground—that of ground 6| feet 
by 2J feet —three guineas, with fees 1/. 11s. 6d., 
that is, four guineas and a half for the ground and 
fees, of a single corpse! But, besides this, you 
have the ground traded out to you in all sorts of 
profitable forms—that is, profitable to the company; 
a reserved ground, at five guineas each body, etc., 


154 


GERMAN 


Then again you have numerous lists of extra fees 

for interment at anv hour before three o’clock or 

*■ 

after sunset, for a weather-screen, for certificate, 
for register, searching register each year, maintain¬ 
ing graves, etc. etc., of a most alarming character. 
Add to this Mr. Chadwick’s statement, derived 
from the evidence of a large undertaker, that each 
funeral, for all above the working class, costs from 
60/. to 100/.; and who indeed does not justly fear 
death?! In this country we are the prey of two 
monsters—the Overtaker and the Undertaker; 
of which the Overtaker, Death, is the least of the 
two. Had St. Paul addressed his sublime queries, 
“ O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is 
thy victory?” especially to us English, the answer 
would have been quickly given, thus: — 

Ques. O death, where is thy sting ? 

Ans . In the Undertaker’s bill. 

Ques. O grave, where is thy victory ? 

Ans. In the Joint-stock Cemetery; associated 
little spots of earth, to bring in from ten to five 
hundred guineas each. 

It is surely high time that we began to think on 
a reform in this matter. Why do not religious 
communities, or social communities, take this thing 
into their own hands, and, without regard to profit, 
have their own burial-ground, their own hearse, 
mourning coaches, and all necessary apparatus ? 
The Friends have long done this. They have in 


EXPERIENCES. 


155 


many places a plain hearse, and they have wisely 
discarded all unnecessary pomp. In the matter of 
this pomp, too, there is nothing which requires a 
reform so urgently on the score of good taste, as the 
set-out of an English funeral. Is there any person 
who has seen a funeral abroad, who, on his return, 
is not most disagreeably affected at the monstrous 
apparition of an English funeral ? Look at a 
German funeral, the highest expense of which, as 
given above, is about 3/. sterling—that is, for the 
highest of the five fixed classes, and may be re¬ 
spectably conducted in the fifth class for \l. Look 
on this, and see how much more there is of true 
grace. The hearse or funeral car is low, light, 
and graceful. It is covered with a black pall, 
upon which is laid a garland. Then come the 
mourning coaches, and that is all! But if the 
invention of a committee of the most notorious pos¬ 
sessors of a diseased taste had been put on the 
rack to produce something most flagrantly bar¬ 
barous, it could have brought forth nothing so 
hideous as an English funeral procession. First 
goes a black fellow with a huge quantity of crape 
sticking out from his hat and hanging down his 
back; then comes another carrying a great black 
board stuck all over with huge plumes; then the 
hearse, a piece of huge and heavy monstrosity, 
all covered again with these black giant bushes of 
plumes; the pall-bearers equally ugly; two fellows 


156 


GERMAN 


marching after with black poles, with big bunches 
of hlack stuff or crape on them, and the mourning 
coaches made as ungainly as possible. It is the 
most ugly procession that mortal fancy ever vomited 
up in its most putrid fever of the brain. And for 
this do Englishmen pay from 60/. to 100/., while 
the wiser Germans, for a far more tasteful and 
classical train and apparatus, pay but three! 


EXPERIENCES. 


157 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE SYSTEM OF PATRONAGE AND EMPLOYMENT. 


Haying thus established a vast coercive power 
over the people,—in the Army, the Censorship, the 
Police, — the German governments might have 
calculated on a tolerably easy maintenance of its 
arbitrary rule. In what shape was public discon¬ 
tent to shew itself? Under the ponderous weight 
of military and police, already described, how were 
the people physically to shew resistance; under 
the knife of the secret censor, how was one single 
cry for help to issue from the popular throat ? But 
tyranny is always suspicious; no security seems 
strong enough for its self-defence, and German 
tyrants certainly hit on the most subtle and effective 
of all modes of strengthening the physical and 
intellectual bondage, to which it had consigned the 
people, and that was by the simple process of 
mothers with hungry children—stopping their 
mouths with pudding. For this purpose, the most 
extraordinary scene of patronage and employment 
which the world ever saw was gradually displayed, 
the most extraordinary scheme of universal de¬ 
pendence on government, organised into a perfect 




158 


GERMAN 


system. Government assumed the management of 
almost every thing, not only in state, but in social 
and commercial affairs. Every thing was made to 
depend on and proceed from government; the great 
mass, in fact, of educated people, to be in govern¬ 
ment pay and employment. Toqueville estimates 
the officials of France at 138,000 persons, or one 
to every 230 persons. But what is this to the 
numbers which, in France even, depend on govern¬ 
ment,—that is, not merely civil functionaries, but 
soldiers, clergy, etc. ? 

In Germany, the army of the Confederation con¬ 
sists alone of 302,288; but the army, which of one 
description or another can be called out, amounts 
to 1,286,178 men. Of these alone, Austria has 
750,000, and Prussia 569,000 men. The clergy, 
Protestant and Catholic, of Austria, in 1828, 
amounted to 72,169 persons, and of Prussia 14,630, 
making a total in these two powers alone, of 86,799. 
As these two powers, however, include about half 
the population of all Germany, double this number, 
and you have for the whole country 173,598 clergy, 
including monks. The nobles in Prussia were 
calculated by Hassel, in 1822, to be 200,000, and 
by Lichstenstein to be, in Austria, 475,000, together 
675,000, or at the rate for the whole country, 
of ] ,380,000. 

Schon states one person out of every 630, in 
Prussia, to be employed in affairs of state; while 
in England only 1 in 1000 is so employed. But 




EXPERIENCES. 


159 


the persons avowedly employed in the affairs of 
state in Germany are a mere fraction compared 
with all who are really dependent on government. 
In Bohemia alone, in 1825, there were returned: — 


Ecclesiastics ----- 4,006 

Nobles ------ 3,267 

Officers ------ 9,267 

Citizens ------ 66,210 


Total - - 82,750 


or 16,000 of titled, clerical, and official personages, 
to 66,210 citizens; or exactly one-fifth of the whole! 

Now, amazing as this may appear, if any one 
acquainted with Germany will call to mind how 
many of the class of families calling themselves 
above the burgerlich, or shop class, have the prefix 
of von, or the distinguishing mark of nobility, 
to their names, the wonder will diminish. To the 
classes already enumerated are yet to be added, 
schoolmasters of all kinds, from the professor to 
the merest elementary school. Germany has 1022 
government-appointed professors, besides a vast 
swarm of unappointed, getting classes together 
by their own exertions, privat docenten , or private 
teachers, who are candidates for the government 
places as they fall out. But of all kinds of 
educational teachers, Prussia returned in 1831 
no less than 24,919. Now Prussia possesses about 
one-fourth of the population of the whole country, 
and were all parts of it equally supplied with 





160 


GERMAN 


teachers, the amount of these would be 99,656. 
As, however, all Germany does not yet possess so 
stupendous a staff of teachers as Prussia, though 
the same system is almost universally diffused, you 
must make the aggregate amount considerably less, 
but cannot state it at less than 60,000. 

Thus, in round numbers, for about fifty millions 


of people, you have of 


Soldiers - - - 

- - 1,286,178 

Clergy - - - 

- - 173,593 

Nobles - - - 

- - 1,350,000 

Schoolmasters 

- - 60,000 


2,849,771 


If you take the nobles to represent the civil 
officials, and the greater portion of the nobles are 
official, while numbers who are not noble are 
official, you have nearly three millions, in a great 
measure, dependent on government for support and 
employment; some more, some less, according to 
their private property, a vast number totally so. 
But still you are far from the true amount of 
persons in government employ and patronage. 
These governments are, as they style themselves, 
Paternal. They treat all their subjects as chil¬ 
dren, and as children not grown to years of sufficient 
discretion to take care of themselves; they there¬ 
fore carry on every thing for these children; assume 
almost every thing into their own hands, instead of 
leaving it to individual enterprise. Not only the 





EXPERIENCES. 


161 


management of the government, the army, the 
police, the post, the magistracy, are under the 
care of government; but all those things which, 
in England, are the enterprises and property of 
private companies, are there carried on by govern¬ 
ment. The mails, carriages, and horses for tra¬ 
velling, carriers’ waggons, high roads, posting, 
the management of woods and mines, salt-works, 
tobacco-trade,—all these are, for the most part, 
in the hands of government. To these we must 
now add the vast extent of railroads, so that in¬ 
cluding all, these Jack-of-all-trades-governments 
cannot have a less number than four out of its fifty 
millions depending daily on it for employment and 
support, that is about one-twelfth of the whole! 

If we thus recollect that the great mass of the 
people is agricultural, living in the country, each 
man cultivating his own section of land, we must 
see how astounding is that proportion of the town¬ 
dwelling and educational population which these 
paternal governments have contrived to make 
themselves the very suns and fountains of life to. 
In fact, the great bulk of the population is educated 
almost from the cradle to government dependence. 
The schools are all constructed so as to employ a 
large number of teachers, at the same time as they 
train the mass of the rising generation to look to 
the government as their great patron and resource. 
The professors are appointed by government, and 
there is always a large number of unappointed 


M 


162 


GERMAN 


watching and gaping for the next vacancies. As 
these vacancies are few, and the salaries small, and 
to be eked out by the fees of students, it may be 
imagined what a scene of plotting and intriguing 
is a University. A man of superior interest of 
course draws a crowd to his lectures, and thins 
the rank of his neighbour. As the senate, a body 
of older professors, therefore, have a privilege of 
recommending candidates to fill up vacancies, it 
may readily be imagined that they are careful not 
to recommend those who will outshine them in 
their own facultv. This is a notorious cause of the 
very indifferent occupation of many of the profes¬ 
sional chairs in some of the universities, while onlv 
two or three are filled by men of more than 
mediocre talents, and swarms of those who possess 
powers and acquirements of a higher order are 
starving on the fees of divided and subdivided 
hearers. 

But the students, themselves, whether in the 
burger schools, the gymnasia, or the universities, 
are nine-tenths of them looking forward, not to run 
a career of independent enterprise, but to pass their 
examination, which entitles them to a post in the 
magistracy, the courts of justice, the kammeralist 
duties, or collection of taxes on estates of a parti¬ 
cular class, in the customs, as managers of woods 
and forests, in the post-office, the police, or the 
thousand-and-one concerns in which government 
is engaged. From the judge or the minister, the 


EXPERIENCES. 


163 


directors of the posting and carrying department, 
from the manager of the government mining or 
salt operations, or the conductor of the great tobacco 
trade of Austria, down to the most petty filler of a 
village post-office or policeman on a railroad,—all 
are fashioned and trained by this government- 
system to turn a greater or a lesser wheel in its 
great national machinery, and to look to it for their 
daily bread. Having, therefore, sung and smoked 
out their little day at the university, even the most 
highly educated of them depart and drop soberly 
into their appointed posts; some in the gay city, 
some in the little dull town, some in the midst of 
the mountains, others of great forests, and others 
in bald, monotonous villages of a bald and unin¬ 
teresting country, amid the toiling peasantry, and 
plod and dream on their lives, without farther 
hope, and apparently without care. As they have 
little more hope, hope seems to wither out of their 
natures, and they gradually subside into the grey, 
formal fathers, and further into the grave. Woe 
to those, however, who in their youthful years, 
during the effervescence of their student life, give 
evidence of more than of the customary allowance 
of free speech and song, who in earnest join any 
party for political emancipation, or say or write 
any thing of a really inspiriting nature; they are 
marked men, they are down in the secret lists, and 
will never receive a post from the paternal govern¬ 
ment. What resources for such men? Thev are 

m 2 


164 


GERMAN 


unfitted for trade, there is little of it in the country 
—they may join the crowded ranks of wretchedly 
paid, even if successful, literary aspirants, or 
follow the flowing tide of their countrymen to 
America. 

The extent to which posts are created and par¬ 
celled out by these paternal governments, so as to 
bind the greatest possible number of subjects, body 
and soul, to their interests, may be illustrated by 
a simple fact. A gentleman being on his way to 
Heilbronn on the Necker, stopped to dine at the 
village of Sinsheim. It was some occasion on 
which all the officials of the little place and its 
environs were assembled. In such a place in 
England we should have found an overseer of the 
poor, a churchwarden, a constable, and now-a-days 
a couple of police. Here the officials, postmaster, 
and deputy-postmaster, and letter-carriers, amtman, 
and clerk, and attendant police, gensdarmes, master 
of the posting, of the forest, with all their sub¬ 
ordinates, the keepers, and their men, in all their 
appropriate liveries, and with most grave and 
official looks, amounted to seventy souls! 

But it is not merely the daily bread that is thus 
nicely, and to the minutest portions, divided amongst 
the great national family, but a passion for honours, 
titles, and orders, is also fostered to an amazing 
degree. There exist, in the different states of Ger¬ 
many, about fifty different orders of knighthood 
and merit of various kinds. Austria has its Order 



EXPERIENCES. 


165 


of the Golden Fleece, the Order of the Stony 
Cross, the Order of Maria Theresia, the Orders of 
Elizabeth Theresia, of St. Stephen, of Leopold, of 
the Iron Crown, the Teutonic Order, the Order of 
St. John of Jerusalem; with medals of Military 
Virtue, of Civil Honour; a golden and silver Cross 
of Honour; and the Badge of Veterans. Every 
other state has its orders; and the numbers of per¬ 
sons that you meet on festive occasions \frith a bit 
of ribbon in the button-hole, or the whole front 
covered with stars, crosses, and medals, is amazing. 
The power which even such a passion as this, once 
created, gives to a government, is inconceivable. 
(t He that is not downright trusty and obedient shall 
have none of these,” is the tacit but powerful voice 
of the state. 

Nor is this all,—the profusion of titles that, as 
well as orders, are showered down on the docile 
subjects, do not seem by any means to grow cheap 
with their multitude. On the contrary, the very 
abundance of them seems to enhance their value, 
as if it became a greater mark of demerit to be 
without one, than of merit to possess it. 

The more sensible and liberally disposed of the 
Germans begin heartily to deplore this state of 
things, and term this passion for title and badge 
a disease. I copy the following excellent little 
paper on the subject from the Carlsruhe Volks- 
kalender: 


166 


GERMAN 


TITLES AND THE TITLE DISEASE IN GERMANY. 


“ Since the unfortunate Thirty Years’ War, 
which checked Germany so seriously in its deve¬ 
lopment, in nearly all directions, a disease has 
shewn itself which was unknown to the prior and 
more vigorous time,—the title disease; which has 
often and justly exposed the Germans to the ridi¬ 
cule of other nations. As, through the land- 
destroying war, nearly all independent property 
was annihilated ; as the o:d, and, before that period, 
generally honourable nobles, betook themselves to 
court in order to get their bread, and bartered 
away their former independence for disgrace; as 
the burger class in the cities, ruined in their trade, 
sunk lower and ever lower, and the peasantry was 
laid regularly prostrate under the burden of the 
most intolerable exactions,—tithes, compelled ser¬ 
vices, and impositions of all sorts,—there arose, 
mightily, more mighty than the princes whose 
commands it executed, the official class. Louis 
XIV., that king of France who, through abuses of 
all kinds, really and truly laid the foundation of 
the French Revolution, which at the end of the 
last century so dreadfully, but so renewingly and 
beneficially, operated on France and on all Europe 
—had in the most unprincipled arrogance pro¬ 
nounced the words, I am the State! and many 
little princes gabbled the wretched phrase after him. 




EXPERIENCES. 


167 


And as the prince said, I am the state, the official 
said, I am the office; like the official, so was the 
clerk. It was not his idea that his duty lay in 
writing out so many sheets of paper, but he be¬ 
lieved firmly and immoveably that the subjects were 
in existence for no other purpose than to be taxed, 
and to be registered and maltreated by him. 

u On the one side that miserable Roman law, on 
the other this Scribery system, with its incessant 
plagues of the nation, ordinances, rescripts, copies, 
permissions, passports, superintendences, tables, and 
lists, have inconceivably damaged the development 
of legal freedom in Germany,—have estranged the 
people from the princes, and have multiplied between 
them a hundredfold, wounds and sunderings, where 
otherwise mutual love and mutual confidence would 
have prevailed. 

“ The scribeship and officialship of the seven¬ 
teenth century, in order to consolidate to the utmost 
their power and influence, invented and introduced 
those beloved long titles which inspire the burger 
and the peasant with respect; no, that German word 
one has no use for. But the states, to the very 
least and worst managed, were richly supplied with 
counsellors. Nearly every letter of the alphabet 
had a counsellor, and then again a privy counsellor. 
There are now, in fact, counsellors of justice, build¬ 
ing counsellors, mine counsellors, cabinet coun¬ 
sellors, office counsellors, conference counsellors, 
counsellors of education, finance counsellors, exe- 


168 


GERMAN 


cutive counsellors, court counsellors,—and of these 
court counsellors there are in Germany, according 
to a most moderate estimate, as many as the petty 
princedom of Lichstentein has inhabitants, namely 
24,000! Counsellors of justice, counsellors of war, 
counsellors of legation, counsellors of medicine, 
post counsellors, counsellors of economy, coun¬ 
sellors of state, counsellors of health, counsellors of 
the tribunal, university counsellors, counsellors of 
the highways. 

“ Other titles are often very ludicrous. Thus 
there are ( Zwangsbefehlstrager,’ Bearers-of-com- 
pulsory-orders, translated into South German, 
Pressers—the lower officials who are commissioned 
to compel the payment of arrears of taxes. Ba¬ 
varia is the model country of long titles. It has 
its Steuer-kataster-kommissionsfunctionare, an of¬ 
fice similar to the above, and its Court-hay-trusser- 
assistants. Saxony has beautiful long titles, and 
a lion cannot more zealously protect its cubs than 
a Saxon official stands upon his title; woe to him 
who forgets an Upper or a Privy which belongs to 
him.* In Hanover there is naturally in accordance 


* Nothing however can shew the absurd extent to which 
Germans carry titles and the love of them, so much as the fact 
that the monarchs claim a style and address higher than that 
which they bestow on the Divinity himself. They give the 
Almighty the title of ‘‘ Der Hochste,” “the Highest,” but to 
themselves that of “Die Allerhochsten ” “ the Highest of all.” 
In the newspapers, at the time of the attempt to drive Buona¬ 
parte out of Germany, appeared an account of the Allied 
Sovereigns ascending a hill (I think at Toplitz), and returning 


EXPERIENCES. 


169 


with so many other precious regulations, a most 

complete titulary system. There, as is befitting, a 

higher nobility assumes to itself peculiarly beautiful 

titles and offices. Thus a noble only can be Forest- 

master. In the Court of Appeal there is a noble 

and a learned bench ; and in this highest court of 

the kingdom the noble and the learned benches 

have contended zealously to outdo each other in 

pliancy and creeping submission to the commands 

and suggestions of power. In Hanover there 

stands bv the side of the other most numerous 
%> 

officers of the hunting staff, also—a court-chamber- 
hunter, that is, the royal rat-catcher, who frees the 
king’s palace from rats and mice. Prussia is tre¬ 
mendously privy-counsellored. The German state 
where all such senseless and ridiculous child’s 
plays and badges are least sought after, and least 
given, is Austria. The empire has always held 
itself apart from them. 

u Now, when a more sound state of things begins 
to develope itself, when the agricultural class begins 
with a vigorous effort to free itself from manifold 
and heavy burdens, and the sole and exclusive 
influence of the class of officials begins, although 
not powerfully enough, to be thrust back to its own 


thanks to God, which contained this singular, and we may add 
blasphemous sentence, “ Die Allerhoehsten Herrschaften be- 
stiegen den hochsten Gipfel des Bergs, knieten nieder und 
flehten zum Hochsten,” i.e. “The All-supreme Lords as¬ 
cended the highest peak of the mountains, knelt down, and 
prayed to the Supreme! ” 


170 


GERMAN 


proper employment,—public affairs; people begin 
also to ridicule the long, tasteless titles, and there 
are fewer fools to be found in the burger class, 
who are grasping at titles and placing all their 
happiness therein. 

“ Let every one strive more and more for the 
respect which will be awarded to him in his proper 
circle by his fellow men, for just and honourable 
conduct, than for titles which are but an empty 
sound. Much better indeed will it be for our 
country, when the title of free-spirited and inde¬ 
pendent citizen, confirmed by public opinion, shall 
be deemed far more high and honourable than any 
title of state.” 


This is good advice, sound sense, and indicates 
the dawn of better modes of thinking and of acting. 
But a dawn that how long precedes the day ! It 
is indeed like the dawn of a summer’s day, which 
commences at midnight. May the long summer’s 
day follow it! but how long must it be even till 
sunrise? Who that has lived in Germany, and 
studied society there, has not seen with amazement 
and sorrow the deep and fatal influence of these 
circumstances? Every traveller and writer has 
more or less noticed it. One of the most recent, 
Mr. Laing, in his (i Notes of a Traveller,” says that 
“ A good social economy would imply social ar¬ 
rangements altogether adverse, both in principle 



EXPERIENCES. 


171 


and operation, to the political power of the state 
over private free agency, which is the basis of all 
social institutions of Germany. The mind bred amid 
the slavish institutions of Germany , is itself slavish. 
The political conceptions of the German mind, as 
expressed at least in writings or conversations, are 
in general, either abject to the last degree, or 
extravagant to the last degree,—the conception of 
slaves, or of slaves run mad: both equally distant 
from the sober, rational speculations and conclu¬ 
sions of free men, on the subject of their political 
and civil liberties.” p. 61. 

This is severe, but it must be confessed to be 
true. It is the most melancholy shock and disap¬ 
pointment which a man of free and noble mind 
and mode of thinking can experience, to find in a 
people who are so extolled amongst us at home as 
a deep-thinking and intellectual people—a people 
so sunk and debased by these slavish acts of 
government. To find how they cower, not merely 
before political power, but before one another. 
How the terror of police, espionage, and secret 
courts of justice, has entered with sharp iron into 
their very souls, and quenched that spirit of bold 
generosity and ingenuity, of which we have daily 
so many examples amongst our own countrymen. 
After living three years in that country, I cannot 
recal more than three instances, which fell under 
mv own observation, of a generous opposition to 
public opinion against an individual, and I dare 


172 


GERMAN 


not now name these three persons, or they might 
suffer for it all their lives. 

This debasement of the mind,—this extinction of 
the bold and the generous sentiment in private 
life,—this conversion into the character of sneaks, 
and what we call contemptible fellows, on whom 
you could depend in no serious cases, is the most 
lamentable of all the effects of despotism in a nation. 
In fact, it works and insinuates itself into the cha¬ 
racter in such ramifications as are amazing to us, 
and deplorable in the intensest degree. It has the 
most fatal effect, even on the moral integrity, the 
love of truth, and the distinction between high and 
ignoble characters. You will see people, whom you 
have previously deemed superior to the mass, asso¬ 
ciating with others of the most notorious baseness ; 
and w r hen you remonstrate with them, they reply— 
11 O, we know it well; but then you do not con¬ 
sider what means these people have of injuring us if 
we offend them. We would fain act differently, but 
we dare not.” The consequence of this wretched 
subjection to fear, inspired by their institutions, 
sinks through the whole moral system, and induces 
the most contemptible moral cowardice—a cow¬ 
ardice again fraught with every abandonment of 
what is true, and great, and honest—and pregnant 
with hypocrisy, cringing, and slipperiness of prin¬ 
ciple. In short, a nation cannot become political 
slaves, without becoming moral ones. There is 
no half-way house on the road of deterioration of 


EXPERIENCES. 


173 


character, which begins with the loss of political 
freedom. Homer’s admirable assertion, that the 
dav which 

Made man a slave, took half his worth away, 

does not indeed express more than half the real 
mischief. 

The students have a fine song, which is very 
popular amongst them, and which is sung almost 
daily in all their parties, in every university in 
the country. This consists of nine stanzas, and 
breathes that spirit of freedom and independence 
which should live in every man’s heart and animate 
his conduct. It has been much admired, and is 
highly creditable to the students, who are the only 
free class of Germans, and free only while they are 
students—that is, free in speech. A witty friend 
of mine, however observed to me, that, if ever a 
national satire was penned, it was this; and that 
he seriouslv believed it to be the work of a student 
of the laugh-in-the-sleeve class. We will take its 
stanzas consecutively— 

Stosst an ! *—Heidelbergf—live thou, hurrah ho ! 

The Philistine to us most kindly leans; 

He sees in the Bursch what freedom means. 

Free is the Bursch ! 

Yes, the Philistine, that is, the public, sees in 
the bursch (the student) what freedom means. He 


* Touch-glasses. 


f Or any other university. 


174 GERMAN 

has no other example or idea of freedom. He has 
none himself; and without the short heyday of 
student jollity and free speech he would have no¬ 
thing to aid his imagination to any conception of 
what freedom is. 

Stosst an ! Fatherland ! live thou, hurrah ho ! 

To our fathers’ sacred customs he true, 

But think on our successors too. 

This is bitter. Their forefathers were free. 
Their sacred customs were every man to maintain 
his personal and political freedom to the death. 
They are not, therefore, true to their fathers’ cus¬ 
toms ; and if they think of their successors, they 
think only, they take no active step to restore 
freedom to them. 

Stosst an! Country’s Prince! live he, hurrah ho! 

He hath promised to guard our ancient right! 

Therefore for him we will live and fight. 

This is most characteristic. The prince has not 
guarded their ancient right, they do not even pre¬ 
tend that he does now, but he has promised to do 
so! And, therefore , they will live and fight for 
him ! They can flatter him for an empty promise 
of doing what for a quarter of a century he has 
shewn every disposition not to do! 

Stosst an! Woman’s Love! live it, hurrah ho! 

Who honours not woman and woman’s mind, 

To friend and freedom is ill inclined ! 

This verse embodies one of the most melancholy 


EXPERIENCES. 


175 


truths in the world. If there be one country in the 
world where more than another “ the mind of 
woman” is less honoured, where, in fact, it is 
utterly despised and neglected, and kept down in 
ignorance and frivolity, it is learned and intellec¬ 
tual Germany! By publishing this state of things, 
and charging it on the antiquated pedantry of the 
men, espscially the learned men, in my “ Germany,” 
one universal outburst of indignation was excited 
in Heidelberg where I lived. Fellows were sent 
to bellow under my windows at night, and I was 
warned to get away, or that my life would be in 
danger. At these threats, of course, I laughed, 
replying only that an Englishman is not afraid of 
bugbears, and a bold attack on a bold man in 
Germany is the greatest of bugbears. Yet, most 
astonishing was it to hear, that it was not denied 
that what I had said was true, nay it was too true, 
the more liberal said, but it was thought unhand¬ 
some to publish this to the world! They loved 
the fact, but hated its exposure! Nay the public 
journals, in their review of the work, pronounced 
this statement most true, the book the most perfect 
picture of their domestic life and character that 
ever proceeded from the hands of a foreigner, and it 
was immediately reprinted and circulated through¬ 
out the country. But whoever will convince him¬ 
self of this contempt of the mind of woman, may 
see it evidenced in a work now translated into 
English. Professor Schlosser’s History of the 


176 


GERMAN 


Eighteenth Century, in which he, contemptuously 
speaking of our lady writers of the last age, asserts 
that women had much better be cooking; and 
nursing their children than writing. This is in the 
true spirit of the German men, who both speak in 
the most unmitigated terms of contempt of female 
intellect, and practically select their wives on the 
same principle; not, as the Quarterly Review lately 
remarked, as intellectual companions, but as good 
cooks and housewives. How perfectly consistent 
then is the conclusion of this stanza. They do not 
honour “ women’s mind,” and they are not well, 
that is heartily, inclined to freedom. Nay, I have 
frequently heard the groveling sentiment expressed 
in society by learned professors, that the “ Business 
of Germany as a nation, is not to assist and teach 
political f reedom, but philosophy 

Stosst an ! Man’s Strength ! live it, hurrah ho! 

He who can neither drink, love, nor sing, 

How scorneth the Bursche so mean a thing! 

That “ man’s strength ” should be solely exer¬ 
cised in “ drinking, loving, and singing,” and that 
the Bursche scorns u so mean a thing,” and does 
not scorn him, because he fails to exert his man’s 
strength in the vindication of his liberties, is a 
most expressive sentiment, and could be uttered 
only under such a state of things. 

Stosst an ! Free Speech ! live it, hurrah ho! 

He who knows the truth and dare it not speak, 

Despised for ever remain the sneak ! 


EXPERIENCES. 


177 


This certainly is the most scarifying sarcasm 
which ever was uttered against the German nation. 
Where is the free speech ? Who does not know 
the truth, that the whole nation is politically and 
civilly enslaved, and who does and dare speak 
the truth? Who dare speak the truth in public 
or private life? This is bitter, bitter; and with 
what a sweeping vengeance comes down upon them 
their own imprecation, their own avowal of self¬ 
contempt. 

Despised for ever remain the sneak. 

Stosst an! Bravery! live it, hurra, ho! 

He who counts the cost ere the battle-hour, 

Will basely stoop to the hand of power! 

Bravery! Where is it again? It is this—the moral, 
manly bravery, the stern and steady daring, which 
makes men martyrs or freemen, which the despot¬ 
ism of their government has so utterly extinguished 
in the public mind, that they lie prostrate—fifty 
millions of people — before about thirty tyrants, 
and kiss the hand which at once holds fast the 
common chain, and doles them out their daily 
bread ; the bread which grows upon their own 
plains, steeped in the blood of their ancestors, who 
died for liberty, and should be reaped by free 
hands, and eaten as their own heritage, and not as 
the gift of an autocrat. It is this “ counting the 
cost ere the battle-hour,” which has deferred to this 
moment, and will defer yet longer, it is to be feared, 

N 


178 


GERMAN 


many and many a year, the battle for internal free¬ 
dom, for which a few better spirits long ardently 
and cry manfully, from the free Alps and the free 
countries to which they are fled. It is this “ count¬ 
ing the cost,” which has cost so many patriots their 
lives, or their lives’ happiness. Which sent abroad, 
in headlong haste, in the race for life, the Follens, 
the Arndts, the Forsters; and which has doomed 
many another noble spirit to pine out its days in 
distant exile, or to steal along the hidden path of 
poverty at home. It is this counting the cost which 
makes Germany what it is—a dreaming, intellec¬ 
tual, speculative slave; which 

Will basely stoop to the hand of power. 

Stosst an ! Bursehen-weal! live thou, hurra, ho ! 

Till the world is consumed on the judgment-day. 

Be true, ye Burschen, and sing for aye— 

Free is the Burscli! 

Aye, be true, ye Burschen! and what?—join with 
free spirits to free your country? No, of that you 
have no hope. The malady of political subser¬ 
viency is too deeply rooted. The system of despotic 
interference in every man’s affairs is too cunningly 
constructed, and too widely and powerfully ex¬ 
tended. You have no hope of aid from your office- 
holding middle ranks; from your military and 
official nobles; from your fellows connected with 
government, police, and tax-gatherers, and secret 
judges and scribes; you have no hope in the moral 


179 


EXPERIENCES. 

vigour and honest zeal of your countrymen for 
political liberty,—therefore, 

Be true, ye Burschen, and— sing for aye!!! 

That is all! 

- Sing for aye, 

Free is the Bursch ! 

He is the only German who has a shadow of free¬ 
dom, and that only so long as he is a Bursch. He 
makes his examination, receives his certificate, and 
sinks from a free Bursch into a slave, and perhaps 
a tax-gatherer, the tormentor of slaves!—a miser¬ 
able awaking out of the brief and lively dream of 
academic life, where he heard and joined in the 
enlivening cry over the wine-glass, of “Freiheit! 
Freiheit! Freiheit!” 

But let us not be unjust. To suppose a whole 
nation so sunk in moral dignity as not even to 
wish for freedom, is to suppose what never was 
true. In Germany there are few who do not wish 
for freedom;—there are many, and it is an increas¬ 
ing number, who cry for it,—but with what hope ? 
Contemplate that! mighty, that quintuple powder, 
which I have in these pages shewn to be arrayed 
against popular freedom. Contemplate the net so 
artfully woven out of all the fears, hopes, and 
interests of the great mass, the threads of which 
are all gathered up and held in the hands of 
government. Contemplate the military, the police, 
the censorship, the patronage and employment, and 

v 2 



ISO 


GERMAN 


the order-and-title-distributing systems, and sav 
who first shall risk his daily bread; who first shall 
make himself a useless victim, whose bloody expe¬ 
rience and knowledge of honour gives him no hope 
that others will rise to his rescue? It is too much 
to demand of any man who lives like the German 
official in great bodily comfort, and we are not yet 
at the end of his long political chain. Let us take 
a view of another pinching link. 


EXPERIENCES. 


181 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE ROMAN LAW, WITH ITS SECRET TRIBUNALS. 


I have already stated that the German Emperors 
early adopted the title of the Roman empire, and 
with it the Roman law, which of all others is best 
adapted to the wishes of arbitrary power. This 
law continues in force to this hour. Amid a people 
of fifty millions, who boast of being, and are 
boasted of as the most philosophical and thorough 
explorers into the fundamental principles of things, 
this barbarous system of law, which outrages every 
principle of liberty of the subject and of enlightened 
exercise of executive power in a state, is not only 
the universal system east of the Rhine, but is 
gravely taught and explained, and eulogized too, 
bv the professors of everv German university. 

It must be understood that the science and prac¬ 
tice of jurisprudence are taught, not as with us, in 
inns of court, but wholly and solely in the univer¬ 
sities in Germany ; and the united legal professors in 
each university, under the name of the Spruchcol- 
leg, pronounce decisions on the justice and legality 




182 


GERMAN 


of all adjudged cases, where any appeal is made 
from the ordinary courts. 

Would it be believed, that at this time of day in 
any country of Europe, but especially in a country 
claiming so high a rank for its philosophical and 
enlightened spirit, for its profound learning, for 
its theorizing and illumination on the subject of 
education, for its great nationally organized system 
of educational instruction; that in this country 
there was no such thing as open courts of justice, 
or juries, or judges sitting in public, and hearing 
evidence in the presence of the accused; but that all 
criminal processes, and almost all civil ones, are 
conducted before secret tribunals, secret judges, 
and without the accused seeing his accusers? That 
is fact; every prisoner is conducted, not to a fair 
and open examination, where positive evidence is 
brought out in the face of day, and with the public 
eye upon it; where the prisoner can call his witness 
openly to rebut false charges, and then is not 
left to the dictum of a single secret judge, but 
to the 'verdict of tw r elve men of his own class 'who 
decide on oath, and before the whole public, of 
his guilt or innocence, but to all intents and pur¬ 
poses in as complete a secret inquisition as ever sat 
in Spain? Yet such at this hour is the state of 
things in enlightened and philosophic Germany; 
and this state of things is praised and defended by 
the most learned professors of law, and declared 
to be better than the trial by jury of the British 


EXPERIENCES. 


183 


constitution, or of the code Napoleon. It must be 
recollected, however, in abatement of the wonder, 
that these professors are all appointed by the very 
governments which uphold this system of law, and 
are therefore part and parcel of the great machine 
of despotism under which Germany lies. 

To an Englishman, however, the very idea of 
such a system of judicature is horrible. To sup¬ 
pose himself falling by some circumstance into the 
hands of justice. That he is conducted to prison, 
not with the prospect at a certain day of coming 
forth to a public trial, with his advocates, his wit¬ 
nesses, his jury, and the public looking on, but 
of being led before a private judge, in a closed 
tribunal; a judge appointed and maintained by an 
arbitrary and irresponsible government. Imagine 
the charge against him, under these circumstances, 
to be political. Imagine instead of witnesses against 
him, face to face, he finds a written charge; that 
his defence is reduced to writing by a clerk; that 
this does not come before a jury, or the public, but 
is decided upon by another secret judge, who never 
saw him, his accusers, his witnesses, but merely the 
minutes of the tribunal before which he has been 
examined? Imagine this, and what must be the 
horror of such an accused person, who has been 
accustomed to delight himself in all the sense of 
the securities of open trial, open judges, witnesses 
face to face, and a respectable, and to the public, 
responsible jury! 


184 


GERMAN 


What security is here? What shall prevent 
partiality, or private rancour, or the instructions 
of an interested government from taking effect? 
Who shall answer for the accuracy and fairness of 
these secretly concocted documents, on which a 
third party is to decide? Surely such a barbarous 
system, a system so calculated for all the darkest 
purposes of despotism, never was invented, and 
never could have endured to this day except under 
the support and for the ends of a tyrannic govern¬ 
ment. What is still stranger is, that although 
Napoleon planted his code, with open trial and 
juries, in the Rhenish States, which have refused 
to yield them up again, yet not only does every 
other state of Germany persist in this barbarous 
system, but till lately it was accompanied by its 
concomitant horrors of torture. Nay, the rack 
is not yet in all cases discarded, if not for the 
extracting of confessions, at least for aggravating 
punishment afterwards. This is even the case in 
Prussia, and the tailor who, in 1841, murdered a 
Catholic Bishop, was ordered to be broken inch 
by inch on the wheel, beginning at the feet and 
going upwards, and suffered the barbarous in¬ 
fliction. 

In Baden torture during trial was not abolished 
till 1835; and though now nominally abolished in 
most states, it is still occasionally employed, and 
especially in the form of caning or cudgeling, 
which is very common. Is this a nation from 


EXPERIENCES. 


185 


whom we, a free people, are to borrow civil insti¬ 
tutions, and systems of popular education ? But, 
say the German lawyers, there is a court of appeal, 
to which any one who deems himself the subject of 
an unjust sentence can apply. True, but before 
appeal there must be a decision to appeal against; 
and to how many years of incarceration and un¬ 
heard-of sufferings may one of these secret inquiries 
be dragged out ? And if it arrive at length, who 
shall be able to unravel all the false statements 
and artful cobwebs of the law, which are become 
part and parcel of the mass of documents from 
which, and not from the accused or his witnesses, 
the final judgment is to be made in a distant place, 
and before a judge who may be very indifferent 
about the victim and all his concerns? 

This very practice of doing every thing by writing 
is become one of the enormities against which the 
German people cry most piteously, but in vain. 
They give it the name of “ Schreiberei, or Scribery.” 
It was invented to find employment for as many as 
possible of the loungers which the governments are 
bound, on their plan of universal patronage and 
universal dependence, to find offices for; and it is 
grown to such a frightful extent, and has pushed 
itself out into matters and departments of life, to 
such a degree, that the offices are choked with the 
huge bundles of papers, and the people are plagued 
with them worse than the Egyptians with the flies, 
and lice and frogs, that came in upon them at every 


180 


GERMAN 


door and window. There is a stupendous list of 
regulations on every possible subject, as I have 
before observed, even to that of shooting sparrows 
and tomtits. Every civil and criminal action is 
carried on by long paper statements, answers, repli¬ 
cations, cases to lay before the judges, their deci¬ 
sions, etc. etc., to a most wearisome length, and a 
most alarming one, when it is reflected that all this 
has to be paid for. The country people, who can 
not understand these things, are plagued with these 
long documents respecting the payment or non¬ 
payment of their taxes, and must fly to other 
lawyers to clear up and manage the matter, and 
then again goes on the long process of written 
folios. Even in passing through the country, if 
you claim exemption from duty for any luggage 
that you may have, you are liable to have your 
things sent on to your destination, accompanied by 
a document, partly printed and written, of no less 
than six large folio pages; full of directions for 
you to comply with on receiving these articles, in 
omitting anv one of which, whether vou can read 
them or not, you are liable to heavy penalties. This 
was my own case, on first going into the country, 
and though my trunk was delivered free of duty, 
I was fined two pounds sterling for neglect of a 
form of which I was perfectly ignorant, but which 
Mas required by a little clause, lost to me in the 
cnnvded mass of instructions of six great folio 
pages. But if this barbarous system be annoying 


EXPERIENCES. 


187 


and entrapping in petty and civil matters, how 
destructive is it in great and particularly in criminal 
ones. 

Mr. Laing speaks of one which came to his know¬ 
ledge:—“ In 1830, a retired nobleman of the Danish 
court, the Chamberlain Von Qual, dwelling in Eutin, 
a town between Holstein and Liibeck, was found 
murdered at his door. His two servants, the gar¬ 
dener and coachman, were suspected of the crime 
and arrested. With us no process could be more 
simple, than bringing these men to trial at the next 
assizes, and acquitting or condemning them on the 
evidence produced. Here, in no obscure corner of 
Germany, but in the centre of civilization, after an 
imprisonment of six years and three hundred and 
twenty-five days in fetters, the writings in the case 
forming twenty-five folio volumes, the men were 
found innocent of the crime imputed to them. The 
one, however, not being able to prove the utter 
impossibility of his being guilty, is guilty of being 
suspected, and is left to pay the share of his ex¬ 
penses of the proceedings, which is equivalent to 
imprisoning for life for the debt, as lawyers do not 
write folios for nothing. ... A criminal who has 
served out the term of his punishment, or a person 
acquitted altogether , may still be working as a convict, 
for the expenses of his prosecution.”— Laing's Tour 
in Sweden , pp. 131, 2. 

But I will translate a criminal case, which will 
give a pretty good idea of the working of this 


188 


GERMAN 


system of Roman judicature. It is one out of 
many, which of late years have got out into the 
papers, have been spread far and wide, and have 
at length made this most phlegmatic and submissive 
people very fidgety under this inquisition. I take 
the account from the Carlsruhe Yolks Kalender 
for 1843. 

CABINET-MAKER WENDT, IN ROSTOCK. 

A Narrative from the Criminal Record , made from 

the Judicial Documents , by Karl Buchner. 


UNJUST JUDGMENT CRIES TO HEAVEN. 


On the 26th of October 1830, the officers of 
police in Rostock, in the Grand Dukedom of 
Mecklenburg Schwerin, received a written medical 
announcement, that in the house of cabinet-maker 
Wendt, in the morning of this day, eight persons, 
and particularly the wife of Wendt, had been taken 
dangerously ill after drinking coffee, and that the 
probability was that there had been an attempt at 
poisoning with arsenic. 

In consequence of this announcement, the officers 
of police betook themselves the same day to the 
cabinet-maker Wendt’s house, and found there the 
following eight persons ill:—Wendt’s wife, the 
daughter Margaret Wendt, the mother of Wendt’s 
wife, born Kiichenthal, the three journeymen, Saal } 




EXPERIENCES. 


189 


Frick, and Wirth, and the two apprentices, Heeser 
and Nehls. 

The following particulars were the result of the 
inquiry into the affair :— 

Wendt’s wife had, that morning, got up quite 
well; had taken from an earthen pot which stood 
in a cupboard on the dresser, perhaps two ounces 
of coffee and some chicory; and, after pouring on 
this the coffee left the day before, had boiled it in a 
can. The persons who had drunk of it were very 
soon seized with pains and sickness; the old Kii- 
chenthal equally, though she had not drunk any of 
this coffee. She declared that the day before, after 
taking in the afternoon three cups of coffee, she had 
been taken with violent sickness. This coffee was 
not taken from the stock of the Wendts, but from 
her own, and had been boiled in Wendt’s kitchen. 

The officers took possession of those vessels 
which had been thus used by Wendt’s wife, and 
by her mother Kiichenthal, or had been at all used 
in the matter, as well as several bottles of what 
had been thrown up. 

During these proceedings, Master Wendt was 
absent, having been called since the 21st of October 
on family business to Anclam; but a message 
being despatched to him, he returned, on the night 
of the 27th or 28th of October, to Rostock. 

On the 30th died Wendt’s wife. The journey¬ 
man Saal had stated, that the master, Wendt, for a 
long time, had had arsenic in the house to poison 


190 


GERMAN 


rats, and that some of it might he remaining. This 
being mentioned to Wendt, he said that he had a 
packet in the house containing arsenic, and that 
this was laid in the cellar, in a spot known only to 
himself, and concealed by a heap of shavings. The 
packet was actually found in the place described, 
and the paper containing the arsenic had a label 
upon it, with a death’s head, and the words ar- 

SENICUM, POISON. 

As to the manner in which he became possessed 
of this arsenic, Wendt stated that the master cabi¬ 
net-makers in Rostock had been allowed, for a 
course of many years, by a certificate of permission, 
to purchase a pound of arsenic, for the purpose of 
laying it in their warehouses against the rats. The 

remainder of this arsenic came into Wendt’s hands 

/ 

as the then deputed manager of the furniture ware¬ 
house—and that, having used but a small quantity 
of it for the rats when he ceased to be the deputy, 
he had kept the rest. He declared to the officers, 
that the packet had been carefully kept by him,— 
first, in a locked cupboard; and since Midsummer 
1830, in the cellar. He offered to confirm this 
with an oath ; adding, that neither his wife, nor 
any other of his people, knew were it was. 

The chemical inquiry which followed shewed 
that the remains of the coffee in the different cases 
contained a considerable quantity of arsenic. 
Arsenic, too, was discovered in the throat and 
stomach on opening Mrs. Wendt; and the written 


EXPERIENCES. 


11)1 


certificate of the doctor declared that Wendt’s wife 
had met her death from the poison of arsenic. 

In the beginning a suspicion fell on one Mrs. 
Wilhelms and her daughter* who lived in Wendt’s 
house; especially as Mrs. Wendt on her death-bed 
had expressed such a suspicion, deposing formally 
that there had been not long before a serious mis¬ 
understanding between her and them. 

While these inquiries were going on there broke 
out a fire, on the 23d of November, in the back 
buildings of Wendt; happily it was soon extin¬ 
guished: there was a suspicion that the fire had 
been purposely kindled, and this suspicion again 
fell on Mrs. Wilhelms and her daughter. Yes, it 
went so far as to occasion their arrest; but on 
inquiry the suspicion fell to the ground, and the 
two women were again set at liberty. The sus¬ 
picion of the poison produced no injurious conse¬ 
quence to them, but, on the contrary, appeared so 
far as could be seen to be equally unfounded. 

The judges then, therefore, found themselves 
disappointed in the discovery of the person or 
persons who purposely and wickedly had sought 
to take away bv most agonizing means, the lives of 
a whole family, and had actually struck out the 
mother from the catalogue of the living. At this 
period of defeated inquiry, on 7th of January 1831, 
the apprentice Heeser, deposed before the magis¬ 
trates that the poison was carried into the cellar at 
Midsummer 1830, but in the morning after the 


192 


GERMAN 


return of Mr. Wendt from Anclam, that he, 
Heeser, had on that morning overheard a conversa¬ 
tion between Wendt and the journeyman Saal, in 
which Saal told Wendt that the magistrates had 
got intelligence of the poison being in the house. 
That on this, Wendt took the packet out of the 
cupboard which stood on the dresser, and carried 
it into the cellar. 

To prevent any mutual explanations, the appren¬ 
tice Heeser was taken up on the 31st of January, 
1831. On the 17th of February he petitioned to 
be heard, and declared that the cabinet-maker, 
Wendt, was himself the perpetrator of the poisoning 
and also of the arson. As the ground of his 
opinion he stated, that as Mrs. Wendt lay on her 
death-bed, she called him to her, pressed his hand, 
and said, “ My husband alone is guilty of my 
illness;” and further, that Wendt, before the fire, 
had declared that the house would be set fire to; 
and moreover, that the police could never discover 
who had laid the fire, and just as little who had 
done the poisoning. 

At the same time Heeser related many of Wendt’s 
deceitful actions; namely, that Wendt, through his 
apprentice, had, without the knowledge of Mer¬ 
chant Haack, had boards and bottles of oil and 
shell-lac, brought from his premises; that he had 
carried off and appropriated other people’s stone 
landmarks that lay before the houses; and finally, 
that he had only paid duty for one journeyman 
when he always employed several, 


EXPERIENCES. 


193 


Heeser afterwards asserted that it was probable 
that Wendt had poisoned his mother, the widow 
of the master shoemaker, Stegemann, in Rostock, 
who died in January 1830, as she in her last illness 
had suffered extremely from sickness. That Wendt 
and his wife seemed generally to have been on ill 
terms with his mother. That the deceased, Mrs. 
Wendt, was probably privy to this poisoning, and 
that Master Wendt most likely was desirous to be 
rid of her, having this knowledge. 

When it was remarked to Heeser that this occur¬ 
rence in his house took place during his absence, 
and that, therefore, Wendt could not be the per¬ 
petrator of it, Heeser asserted that Wendt had been 
assisted by the journeyman Saal. He added, on 
the 16th of March, that, about fourteen days before 
the poisoning, Wendt had made a proposition to 
himself, in general terms, for the carrying out of 
some important action, which demanded the greatest 
zeal and most profound secresy, which he, Heeser, 
had, however, declined. At the same time, how¬ 
ever, Heeser so far altered his former statement, 
as to declare that Wendt had expressly, under 
promises of great advantage, made him the pro¬ 
posal to put poison into his, Wendt's, wife’s coffee, 
because she was aware of his poisoning of his 
mother, the widow Stegemann. That he, Heeser, 
had declined; but, on the contrary, was certain that 
Saal had put the poison in, because the day before 
Wendt had set out on his journey he had declared 


o 


194 


GERMAN 


to him, that Saal was ready to carry his proposal 
into effect. 

In this hearing, Heeser accused his master of the 
theft of various articles, which, at the time of the 
fire, the Wilhelms had missed. 

Finally, on the 18th of March, Heeser deposed 

that he himself had put the poison into the coffee. 

That he had been seduced thereto bv Wendt and 

«/ 

the journeyman Saal. That Wendt, the day before 
he set out, had handed the poison to him; and that 
a portion of it had been by him, Heeser, put into 
the coffee-can the day before the poisoning, about 
three o’clock in the afternoon, into which Mrs. 
Wendt afterwards poured the boiled coffee. Farther, 
on the 19th of March, Heeser deposed that, at the 
investigation of Wendt, he had set fire to the 
shavings on the floor, and had for this purpose 
2 ’eceived a light from Wendt on the steps. 

Some particulars which Heeser had found occa¬ 
sion to state, in reference to the conveyance of 
the poison into the cellar, and which were, in part, 
meant to shew Wendt’s bad intentions towards his 
wife, and, in part, to prove his thefts, did not hold 
good, because the things which were mixed up 
with Heeser’s declaration on these matters, could 
not be found in the places he stated; but, on the 
other hand, some of the articles stolen from the 
widow Wilhelms, and which Heeser declared had 
been given to him by Wendt, to keep in safety, were 
where Heeser represented them to be. 


EXPERIENCES, 


195 


After various representations had been made to 
Heeser by the examining justices, regarding his 
statements, he recalled the privity of the journe}’man 
Saal as to the poisoning. He made, moreover, one 
after another, three different statements, as to the 
place where he, Heeser, had concealed the remaining 
portion of the poison. On searching every one of 
these places, the court found—nothing. On ac¬ 
count of his lies, Heeser was subjected to corporal 
punishment, and, after its application, menaced 
with a still more severe infliction. On this, he wept 
and lamented sorely; and on the 2*2d of April 
1831, declared that he bad occasioned the visits of 
examination to Wendt’s house, only in the hope 
that, as he went there from the prison, he might 
effect his escape, and that he now acknowledged 
the finger of God in the fact, that the handcuffs 
were put on him the last time that he was thus 
taken thither. Being admonished to profit by the 
finger of God, and in consequence of farther talking 
to, he admitted with sobs that his statements re¬ 
garding the mode of the poison were true, except 
only that the master Wendt was just as innocent as 
the journeyman Saal; that Wendt had no part what¬ 
ever, either in the poisoning or the arson; but that 
both these crimes were perpetrated by him, Heeser, 
out of his own head. He at the same time confessed 
fully how he had got possession of the poison. 
That Master Wendt had laid poison for rats; and 
that he, Heeser, having observed where this poisoo 

o 2 


196 


GERMAN' 


was kept, had, in the absence of Wendt, his wife, 
and journeyman, opened the cupboard with the 
key which hung in the sitting-room,—had taken 
some teaspoonfuls of the poison put of the packet, 
and returned the packet again to its place. The 
whole summer through, there had been a desire to 
poison somebody, and he had even had it in his 
mind to poison Master Wendt himself; and that he 
put the poison into Mrs. Wendt’s coffee, because 
she had given him indifferent food—worse than 
her children had, and had on the Saturday before 
the poisoning threatened when the master came 
home to make known to him his, Heeser’s, tricks. 
That he had set fire to the buildings to revenge 
himself on Wendt, who after the poisoning had 
twice treated him severely. 

ITis former statements, Heeser repeated, but so 
far altered as to declare that Wendt had no concern 
in them; and that he had on the very day of the 
poisoning thrown the remains of the poison down 
a sink-stone; and had accused Wendt, because he 
thought he should not be so severely punished if he 
could make it appear that he had been seduced by 
his master. 

The next day, however, April 23d, Heeser re¬ 
tracted his statement of the innocence of Wendt; 
declaring that it was merely fear of punishment 
that induced him to make this statement. Several 
alleged tamperings of Wendt with him for this 
purpose, and alleged offers of Wendt to him, ap¬ 
peared to be evidently inventions of Heeser. 


EXPERIENCES. 


197 


On the 2d of May, Heeser escaped, but was 
soon retaken. He persisted, in his further exami¬ 
nations, steadily in the guilt of his master, and 
again finally declared the journeyman Saal to be 
the accomplice in the crime. 

The subsequent depositions of Heeser, on the 
particular circumstances both before and after the 
commission of the crime, were essentially similar to 
his former ones, yet in some respects they varied. 
For instance, he retracted the assertion that the 
deceased Mrs.Wendt had spoken on her death-bed 
of the guilt of her husband. Whether at the same 
time Wendt intended to poison his wife, on this 
Heeser said nothing certain, but dealt only in sup¬ 
positions. 

Respecting the death of widow Stegemann, the 
mother of Wendt, Heeser deposed, on the 31st of 
May, that Wendt, in the presence of his wife, had 
given to him a powder in a paper, which he was 
to put unobserved into widow Stegemann’s beer- 
soup, which the widow 7 prepared for herself. This 
Wendt said was medicine, which she otherwise 
would not take. In effecting this, Heeser said, 
that he had become aware that the powder was 
white, and, as he afterward thought, was probably 
poison. 

Heeser further accused the master Wendt of the 
theft of various articles out of the shop of the 
tradesman Schau. He also asserted that he had 
put poison into the coffee of the mother-in-law 7 of 


198 


GERMAN 


Wendt, Mrs. Kiichenthal, the afternoon before the 
poisoning of the rest of the inmates of the house. 
Finally, on the 21st of February 1832, Heeser 
further accused Wendt of having attempted to 
seduce him, in the night between the 29th and 
30th of October 1830, to put fresh poison into his 
wife’s coffee, as she seemed to be recovering. A 
young Wilhelms, whom he said also heard this, 
however, positively denied it. 

After we now have made ourselves acquainted 
with the essential features of these, the accusations 
of Heeser against his master Wendt,. it will be 
proper, before we turn ourselves to Wendt, and his 
statements, to make ourselves a little more inti¬ 
mately acquainted with the personal circumstances 
and character of Heeser. 

Heeser was born in Rostock, in 1822, and there¬ 
fore, about the time of the poisoning of Mrs. Wendt, 
eighteen years old. Fie had received instruction 
in different schools, and had been employed in a 
tobacco manufactory. One of his employers de¬ 
scribed him as a most useful fellow, but at the 
same time, as lying, down-looked, and rascally. 
His father-in-law deposed of Heeser, that “ from 
his boyhood up he had betrayed the most decided 
proneness to deception, and that lies were so glib 
on his tongue that he at last never could believe 
one word that he said. That he was able to con¬ 
duct himself in the most flattering manner, but 
that at bottom he was falsehood itself.’’ It was 


EXPERIENCES. 199 

proved that he had often stolen his father-in-law’s 
money, which he had lavished away. 

During his apprenticeship with Wendt, he was 
guilty of various tricks and impositions on his 
master, who on this account expelled him from his 
house, and only on the earnest entreaties and gua¬ 
rantees of his stepfather took him back again. 

And Wendt?—Born in Anclam, in 1785; he 
had, after learning the trade of a cabinet-maker, and 
completing his wandership, acquired, in 1814, the 
rights of citizenship and of a master in Rostock, and 
at Michaelmas of the same year had married the 
young woman Kiichenthal. Of this marriage were, 
in the year 1830, two children living—a son and a 
daughter. Since 1828 he possessed his house, which 
he purchased for 1900 dollars; of which he was in¬ 
debted to his mother, the widow Stegemann,as long 
as she lived, 1700 dollars, and must pay her interest. 

According to the statements of his neighbours 
and other acquaintance, the cabinet-maker Wendt 
has always led a regular and industrious life, and 
stood in good repute. According to these witnesses, 
the footing on which the married couple lived was 
equally good. He valued in his wife the active, 
frugal manager, or at least always avowed that 
he did. She had never made any serious com¬ 
plaint against her husband, and even the old 
Kiichenthal, who accused her son-in-law of avarice, 
and described him as of a hasty temper, never was 
witness to any matrimonial jarring. The journey- 


•200 


GERMAN 


man Saal described his deceased mistress as of a 
very warm temper; and that she had often disputes 
with Wendt’s mother. Since the death of Wendt’s 
mother, Wendt and his wife had continued friendly 
to each other. Both were active and diligent,—he 
more strict and hard, she more pettish and passionate. 

Heeser had not yet made his severely accusatory 
statements, when Wendt, on the 31st of January 
1831, on being questioned in examination, admitted 
that he had an intention of marrying Catherine 
Langberg. He, at the same time, too, confessed, 
that on the morning after his return he had carried 
the poison into the cellar. 

In the mean time, Heeser’s assertions, by degrees, 
in various forms, were made, with outward signs of 
emotion, and with a manner which one is accustom¬ 
ed to regard, in an uncorrupted person, as the ac¬ 
companiment of honest evidence; yet, it was not till 
the 17th of March, as it appears, that Wendt was 
formally arraigned, on the charge of poisoning and 
arson, although Heeser’s charges to this effect were 
made on the 17th of February. Wendt protested 
his innocence; adding that the carrying of the 
poison into the cellar he had made in the agitation 
into which the dreadful occurrence had thrown 
him, and without being able to assign any reason 
for doing it. Heeser had earlier most pressingly 
demanded a personal confronting with Wendt. By 
the preponderance of his cunning over Wendt, he 
expected to gather stuff for further statements there- 

4 


EXPERIENCES. 


201 


from. And the court actually conceded to this 
wish of Heeser’s, and the confrontation took place. 
This was a judicial act, which ought only to have 
been adopted after there was a full conviction esta¬ 
blished of Wendt’s guilt; and which had the natu¬ 
ral effect of assuring Wendt that the court believed 
Heeser rather than him, and that his denials would 
be unavailing. This was a most essential fault of 
the board of inquiry, and in connexion with Wendt’s 
consciousness of having in the beginning stated 
what was not quite true, with regard to the chang¬ 
ing the place of the poison, and in the further 
consciousness of some alleged petty deceits of which 
he felt himself not quite clear, taken also in connex¬ 
ion with the later and now existing proceedings of 
the court in this matter, produced, as consequences, 
the greatest misfortune, danger of life, honour, and 
property to Wendt. 

It was said in the confrontation by Heeser, to 
Wendt’s face, that he, Wendt, was the murderer, 
and perpetrator of the fire. On this, Wendt lost 
all his usual self-possession, and with the greatest 
vehemence repelled the charges. Heeser, how¬ 
ever, persisted in them. To prevent actual violence 
it was necessary to carry Heeser back to his cell. 
Wendt, now once more sharply accused, protested 
again his total innocence. Yet the court com¬ 
mitted him to city-arrest on hand-oath ;* and on 

* A common and most ancient form of oath in Germany, 
where he who takes it, takes thejudge’s hand, and vows to do 
what is required of him 






202 


GERMAN 


the 19th of March he was taken into actual custody 
accompanied by a power of attachment of his 
property. 

On the 20th of April, the court at once told 
Wendt, “ that, if he wished not to make his fate 
worse by stubbornness, he must at once make a 
free confession of the guilt which apparently lay 
on his conscience.’’ Later, they laid before him 
contradictory facts in his statements, and declared 
to him, “ that, if he would not give honour to the 
truth, the court would take a severe course with 
him; but, on the contrary, if he would make a free 
confession, all should be done that was possible to 
lighten his punishment.” Wendt thus perceived, 
that no statement on his part could be received as 
genuine which did not go to eliminate him, that 
he had only to expect from persistence in his 
avowal of innocence the adoption of severer 
measures, and that no further inquiry would be 
made which might tend towards his acquittal. 
The impression which this must make on the 
desponding temperament of a man of contracted 
views, as he was, is easy to be seen. He burst into 
the most violent weeping, and protested over and 
over, that he had no part nor concern whatever in 
these wickednesses. Then came, on the 22d of 
April, Heeser’s confession of Wendt’s innocence; 
and on the 23d the court itself recorded in pro¬ 
tocol, that “Wendt was perfectly clear of all fur¬ 
ther suspicion.” But on the very same day Heeser 


EXPERIENCES. 203 

again retracted this confession, and the court put 
Wendt into his old position! 

The power of proceeding against Wendt’s estate, 
the court availed itself of on the 9th of May, in 
order to impel him, as he was in a truly depressed 
state of mind on this account, to a further acknow¬ 
ledgment of the deed. This was demanded of 
him even if he were innocent, so at least he must 
understand it. But he stood steadfastly by the 
protestation of his innocence, calling on Almighty 
God as his witness. Throughout almost the whole 
sitting he wept violently, and bewailed himself, 
that through the wickedness of his people he should 
be plunged into misfortune and misery, and yet 
should not be at all able to conceive what had 
instigated them to accuse him of such shameful 
villanies. 

On the 11th of May, Wendt, in commencement of 
the examination, being exhorted to speak out the 
truth, began vehemently to weep, and deposed as 
follows. He stood fast by his innocence; and 
added, amid irrestrainable sobs, what seems very 
natural and probable, 6t That if he hitherto had 
confused himself in his testimony, that proceeded 
from the fact that his unhappy circumstances had 
bewildered his mind, and that he could not com¬ 
mand his thoughts. As to his untrue statement 
respecting the shifting the place of the poison, and 
of his conduct towards Merchant Haack, he trusted 
that he had by his subsequent open statement again 
cleared himself.” 









204 


GERMAN 


Now began the important hearings in which 
Wendt’s confessions followed. Wendt was now 
fallen into such a state, through the conduct of 
the court, and the course into which his fears and 
confusion led him, that confessions regarding him¬ 
self and his circumstances might very w T ell be 
expected from him, let him be as innocent as he 
might. Taken along with the conduct of the 
court, the useless lie which, as already observed, 
he had told regarding the removal of the poison, 
contributed extremely to this. This lie was very 
obviously intended as a means of protecting himself 
against the charge of carelessness. Wendt might 
be far from entertaining any idea that he could be 
suspected of a wilful murder of his wife when he 
uttered this falsehood, and never so far as when he 
removed the poison. Thus in Wendt’s concern 
that his want of care might have been the cause 
of his wife’s death, or at least in his anxiety lest 
the world, and especially his judges, might believe 
so, lay the key to his whole conduct. At the same 
time his mind was more and more oppressed with 
the consciousness of his having spoken thus falsely 
before the court. The anguish in which he thus 
found himself, was, through the way in which it 
sought a vent, rather strengthened than diminished. 
Increase of external disquiet of deportment, confu¬ 
sion of thoughts and mode of action, must become 
the consequences in a strong and inwardly operating 
temperament. To that was added ill-humour during 


EXPERIENCES. 


205 


the examination, while he yet continued at large, 
and dejection as his imprisonment became long 
protracted. 

The admissions made by him of the want of 
strict integrity in his transactions with Merchant 
Haack,—although, alas! such things are but too 
common in such affairs,—deprived Wendt of the 
firm and clear bearing of innocence. When he 
appealed to his honour, to his good name, the name 
of Haack, of a man who had enabled him to earn 
so much, and who placed the utmost confidence 
in him, must have made himself doubt of the 
perfect propriety of his appeal; since no honour, 
no good name, can avail at the bar of our internal 
judge — conscience, without the most entire and 
honest claim to them! 

But Wendt stood on one point, which appeared 
to him desirable, in order to bring the matter to an 
end, that he was following the injunctions of the 
court, prescribed to him, if he meant to avoid mis¬ 
handling of his person. Thus he came to his 
examination on the 13t,h of May 1831. Through 
these incessant examinations it was to be expected, 
as it appeared in the protocol of this day, ‘‘that 
he was in an especially depressed state of mind. 
The court exhorted him once more most solemnly 
to speak out the truth; and represented to him, 
that by denying it, he would only render his fate 
the harder, and would compel the court to deal 
more severely with him; whereas, by a free and 









206 


GERMAN 


open confession, he would reconcile himself to 
God, and convince his judges that he was at least 
no thoroughly hardened fellow, unworthy of all 
compassion.” 

Again, the proofs, the particular circumstances 
which told against him, were laid before him; and 
on this, for the first time, Wendt fell into deep 
thought. He was in the deepest anguish and 
perplexity, knowing well that there were demanded 
from him the most positive evidences of Heeser’s 
false statements, which it was impossible for him 
to give; but in what light Wendt considered these 
menaces of the court, is clear, as he had before 
said: “ Now are they so thoroughly mad, that 
they will soon cudgel me.” Even a more clear¬ 
sighted man than Wendt might in such circum¬ 
stances be led to weigh less the truth, than the 
profitable consequences of a free confession. Yet 
the examination closed this time with Wendt’s 
declaration, “ that he was, notwithstanding all, 
innocent;” and indeed with the remark, “only 
reflect if I for once were to acknowledge myself 
guilty, and it yet were the fact, that this was not 
the truth, to what reproaches I should then expose 
myself.” 

But by all this the court was not softened. It 
did not tell him that it was not necessary that he 
should make confession of untruth; but it repre¬ 
sented to him, “ that he only made his case more 
desperate by a stiff-necked denial, only made his 


EXPERIENCES. 


207 


imprisonment the longer, and, by exposure to fur¬ 
ther contradictions, would augment his punish¬ 
ment.” There was then a fresh batch of charges 
produced against him, through which suspicion 
was to be thrown upon him by persons nearly 
connected with him. 

On this Wendt said, “ I see well that all abandon 
me, and that even my best friends testify against 
me. Under such a combination of circumstances, 
it is impossible but that I must be pressed to the 
earth, and rather than I will longer lie in prison, 
and bring punishment upon myself, I will confess 
what you please; but before God, in such a con¬ 
fession, I perpetrate a lie!” And again and again 
he repeated, “ I will rather acknowledge that I am 
guilty of all, as I see that I am lost; but God 
knows that I have no part in the matter!” 

On the following day, the 14th of May, Wendt 
was called before the court, and had a special 
charge made to him, in a regularly official docu¬ 
ment, of all that told against him—a document which 
the highest court, which was afterwards called to 
decide on his case, describes as one “to which 
one cannot in the main by any means agree.” This 
Board of Inquiry came to this conclusion, that, 
“on all these official grounds, he could scarcely 
hope to effect anything by further protestations of 
his innocence. But, in case of a free confession of 
guilt, he was led to expect that the court would 
with joy seek out every thing which could exte- 







208 


GERMAN 


nuate his offence, and tend to mitigate his punish¬ 
ment.” 

Wendt, constantly in a most dejected state of 
mind, burst, at length, into tears, and lamented over 
his children. He said, “What would the world 
say, if he confessed himself guilty of the matter? 
He had really a severe punishment to expect; per¬ 
haps w r ould not come out of prison his whole life 
long, if he should acknowledge himself guilty of the 
poisoning, and should lose all his property acquired 
by hard and bitter labour and care.” This was 
the consideration which he laid in the scale, and 
not the consideration of the truth. The court gave 
him once more the oft-repeated assurance, in case 
of confession, of doing every thing possible in his 
behalf, and in behalf of his children. He there¬ 
fore, finally, declared, “ Well, then, I w T ill acknow¬ 
ledge that I was privy to the poisoning of my wife, 
and was the instigator of it!” 

According to what has been already described, 
this confession was the result of the state of extreme 
agony into which Wendt was put. He was on this 
farther questioned as to what had induced him 
to take such a step; and weeping and lamenting, 
he made no other answer, than “ Ah, thou merciful 
God!” which he repeated over and over. His 
agony was afresh active in him, and he knew not 
what reply to give. The court, in the mean time, 
by rehearsing to him the announcements to his 
disadvantage, had stated, “ that by his conduct, 


EXPERIENCES. 


209 


and by the assertions of witnesses, it was proved 
that from the wicked character of his deceased wife, 
no connubial happiness, but rather discontent and 
strife, had prevailed between them!” This, on 
further proceeding, helped him out, and after re¬ 
peated questioning, he afterwards declared, “ The 
wickedness of my wife occasioned me to attempt 
her life.” The court, however, did not inquire 
of Wendt in what this wickedness consisted, and 
how r this could bring him to so terrible a resolve. 
On the contrary, the court asked him in what way 
and manner the poisoning had been brought about. 
Wendt knew nothings of himself of the “How?” 
neither had the court stated to him anything on this 
score; in order, therefore, to play the part of the 
culprit, he was obliged to think, in the first place, 
of a sufficient means of getting the necessary know¬ 
ledge. He desired, therefore, to have Heeser and 
Saal brought again into court, the latter of whom, 
however, had made no statement against him ! “If 
these,” said he, “ persist in their assertions, I will 
contend no longer, but will give myself up, although 
I am innocent.” He gave the like answer in the 
consequent confrontation. His fear of corporal 
punishment again shewed itself. 

On the 15th of May, Wendt again returned to his 
protestations of innocence, and persisted in them, 
till the court explained to him, “that he, by this 
conduct, was plunging himself into a most foolish 
and penal course; that he discovered himself by 

p 









210 


GERMAN 


this conduct to be a good-for-nothing fellow, with 
whom people -would use no ceremony, and who 
would find himself more severely dealt with than 
hitherto, if he did not hit on a better mode of pro¬ 
ceeding.” Here again actually was no express 
mention of blows. Thus prepared, Wendt avowed 
“that he had instigated Heeser to poison his, Wendt’s, 
wife;” adding, “I said yesterday that the wicked¬ 
ness of my wife determined me to this deed, and to 
that I must stick to-day.” He then went on, “Saal 
knew nothing of the poisoning at all; he, Wendt, 
had merely said to him that he, Wendt, was going 
a journey, and he, Saal, must manage the business.” 
Then followed the poisoning commission given to 
Heeser, with all its particulars of execution. 

These statements agreed essentially with those 
which Heeser had made, and which had been made 
known to Wendt by Heeser himself in the con¬ 
frontation of the 17th of March. He had only to 
retail Heeser s story. Yet in the very same hearing 
Wendt declared that this confession of participating: 
in the poisoning of his w T ife and of the arson to be 
an entire lie, which he made to escape punishment, 
and which he now retracted. The consequence 
of this was, that Wendt, in punishment of his un¬ 
truth, that is, of his recantation, was commuted 
to twenty-four hours’ close confinement, with bread 
and water. No account of blows is found regds- 
tered on this occasion, yet Wendt understood these 
menaces to have this meaning, and the sequel proved 


EXPERIENCES. 


*211 


him to be correct; for then he had twice inflicted on 
him three blows with the cane . 

The statement of Heeser respecting the murder 
of the widow Stegemann, caused the court to come 
back to the statement of Wendt of the poisoning of 
his wife. Here he said that his confession of the 
13th and 14th of May were cpiile voluntary, and 
moreover asserted that he had been quite confused 
in his ideas, and in a most distressed state of mind. 
On a later occasion this subject was again gone 
into, and he presently received the two flagellations 
already mentioned. He had, in a second con¬ 
frontation with Heeser, again stood firm by his 
innocence. Moreover, in a hearing on the 14th of 
March 183*2, he repeated his declaration, et that he 
was compelled to take upon himself the crime, or 
that he should be cudgeled; but that he had never 
instigated Heeser to the poisoning of his wife, so 
certain as there was a God in heaven !” 

When it was asked wherefore Wendt had con¬ 
fessed, if he were innocent, he declared, amongst 
other things, “ that he was at that time extremely 
disturbed in his mind.” In order to make an end 
of the matter, he had resolved in his prison to 
declare himself guilty. To this, the assurances of 
the President of the Police-court, Von Rettung, in 
case he confessed, had led him. The particular 
circumstances he had heard in the confrontation 
with Heeser, who had declared to his, Wendt’s 
face, that “ he had been so and so seduced by 


i» 






212 


GERMAN 


Wendt.” Wendt persisted in the assertion of his 
innocence, and with regard to his original departure 
from the truth as to the time of shifting the place 
of the poison, he said, “ I wished to free myself 
from the reproach of a careless keeping of the 
poison” 

But enough. I have taken this account at large, 
and completely, that we might see the whole 
manner in which this wretched man was treated by 
his judges ; see, in fact, what is the ordinary way 
of proceeding in such cases. We must now shorten 
the remaining portion of the paper. The upshot 
of the matter, as was inevitable—for the judges 
would have it so—was, that Wendt was declared 
guilty, and was, after one-and-twenty months of this 
judicial torture, consigned to the House of Cor¬ 
rection in Rostock, till he received sentence from 
a higher court. It must be recollected, that—spite 
of all the threatenings, cudgelings, and promises 
of milder treatment, if he would criminate himself, 
though giving way at times—'he always came back 
on all the charges made by the only evidence 
against him, his apprentice Heeser, to the most 
positive assertions of his innocence. He was ac¬ 
cused by this wicked lad, who, at the same time, 
brought no proof, but his bare word, of the murder 
of his own mother by poison, of setting fire to his 
premises, of the murder of his wife, and of the 
serious injury by poison of his own children and 
family. Now it appeared clear, from the inspec- 


EXPERIENCES. 


213 


tion and certificate of the medical men, that his 
mother had not died by poison at all; but, according 
to all appearances, a natural death; and, indeed, as 
to the whole batch of charges, as w r e shall see, this 
scoundrel apprentice, when it was too late, con¬ 
fessed that his master was totally innocent. 

We here, however, so far only, see the working 
of one part of this system of judicature; yet has 
to come, the process of passing sentence by other 
courts , and of the glorious uncertainty of the law in 
this system. 

Wendt had been twenty-one months under the 
hands of his secret inquisitors, who, all the time, 
were playing with his estate, and were resolved to 
condemn him, because his property would then all 
be forfeited. Having got him at last, when he was 
driven frantic, to condemn himself, they turned 
him over to the house of correction. But now, a 
decision had been come to, and the poor wretch 
employed a lawyer to examine the evidence on which 
he had been condemned, and if he found it wrong 
to appeal against it. 

This was done, according to the German fashion, 
by sending an attested copy of the minutes of his 
trial, to the law professors of the University of 
Gottingen. 

As was originally the case with us, all German 
law is still taught in the universities. The Germans 

o 

have, unlike us, no Inns of court, where the Bar¬ 
risters themselves become the teachers of law, and 








214 


GERMAN 


by which they have practically, though not entirely 
as to theory, drawn the real teaching of law away 
from the universities. The Germans retain the 
sole business—the teaching of law. The law pro¬ 
fessors, then, in each university, constitute what is 
called a Spruch-collegium,—a college or court of 
decision; and to these Spruch-collegian disputed 
cases of all kinds are sent, on which they give a 
written decision, which however may be appealed 
from to the Ober-appcllations-gericht, or Grand 
Court of Appeal, in each state. 

Now these colleges and courts, which are called on 
to decide the fate of property and lives, see neither 
accuser nor accused, neither plaintiff nor defendant, 
witness, counsel, nor judge,—they see merely the 
written minutes of what has been done. In this 
case, there were appeals made to three different 
courts, to two colleges, and one grand court of 
appeal, which gave three most decidedly differing 
judgments on the very same documentary evidence. 

The first appeal was to the University of Got¬ 
tingen; which, on the 6th November 1834, gave 
this decision:—“That Wendt must be freed by the 
court from the charge of poisoning his mother, 
the widow Stegemann, till better evidence can be 
brought against him; but that for the poisoning 
of his wife, and the attempt to poison his mother- 
in-law Eleonore Kiichenthal by instigation, and the 
wicked injury of other persons by poison and arson, 
he must be condemned to be put to death by 


EXPERIENCES. 


215 


being broken on the wheel.” The apprentice 
Heeser, as accomplice, to be confined for life in 
the Bridewell, and Saal the journeyman to be set 
free. The ground of this judgment, we will, for 
the present, pass over. The next decision was that 
of Heidelberg, which on the very same documents, 
on the 14th January 1836, about a year and a 
quarter afterwards, was:—“That Wendt must be 
fully freed from the charge of poisoning his mother, 
and from that of attempting to poison his mother- 
in-law, as well as from that of setting fire to the 
buildings. As to the charge of poisoning his wife, 
he was also to be liberated from it, but only from 
want of evidence . He was to be exempt from all 
costs, except that of appealing to themselves; and 
for his not sticking to the truth, his confession of 
petty cheats, his imprisonment was to be taken as 
the punishment. 

This judgment saved him from death on the 
wheel, and set him at liberty, but with the suspicion 
of the murder of his wife riveted on him, so that 
it at the same time ruined him. It condemned 
him, in fact, to perish of starvation, for the Cabinet¬ 
makers’ Guild refused him admittance to their 
meetings, and to prosecute his trade in the city. 
Wendt’s attorney, who appears to have been an 
excellent and spirited fellow, complained to the 
Stadtrath, the city justice, against this exclusion. 
But the Stadtrath refused to assist, on the contrary, 
he announced to the Gewettgericht, the very police 







216 


GERMAN 


court which had tried Wendt and condemned him, 
and against which his appeals lay, that it had the 
right to close the guild against him. In vain did 
the attorney apply to advocates, in vain to the 
government of Mechlenburg-Schwerin ! Had not 
the attorney, Herr Kriill, taken him into his own 
care and protection, he must have perished in 
despair, and had no roof to shelter him but God’s 
free heaven. The good man did more. Convinced, 
by a careful perusal of the minutes of trial, of 
Wendt’s innocence, he supported him in all pos¬ 
sible wavs. He advanced monev to replace Wendt 
in his house and property, which had been sold by 
the Inquisitorial Court which had condemned him, 
and gave him work to be doing! He did more; 
he did not cease till he had got Wendt’s case before 
the Grand Court of Appeal—and on February 5, 
1838, that is, two years after the Heidelberg decision 
and three years after the Gottingen one, this last 
Court of Appeal decided,—“ That he was per¬ 
fectly INNOCENT OF ALL THE CHARGES WHATEVER, 
AND FROM ALL THE COSTS, EVEN THOSE OF THE 
APPEALS! 

“That this decision,” says the compiler of the 
case, “filled Wendt with indescribable thankfulness 
and joy, any one may readily conceive; but,” adds 
he, “ in the mean time he had suffered all the fatal 
consequences of this prosecution, and this decision 
could not remove them.” The attorney applied to 
the Court of Appeal, for an order for the payment 


EXPERIENCES. 


217 


of full damages to Wendt—but this it would not 
grant; and he had now been seven years under the 
harrows of the law,—the greater part of it in prison , 
— his household, were scattered — his property ruined 
—his trade gone for ever ! ! 

The apprentice, Heeser, was by the Court of 
Appeal confirmed in the sentence of perpetual 
imprisonment in the house of correction, and was 
laid in chains. When Wendt was set free, beyond 
any power of inferior courts, or his own fiendish 
lies and malice, what then does this fellow? On 
the 11th of May 1839, he made a free confession 
to the Directors of the House of Punishment in 
which he says, “ that Wendt was perfectly innocent 
of all the charges , and that he had poisoned the wife 
entirely on his own head .” 

Here surelv is a case which demonstrates the 
system of law and criminal prosecution, as existing 
in Germany, to be such as one could not, without 
such evidence, have credited as tolerated by any 
savage nation, any nation in the ver}^ lowest grade 
of civilization. Yet this is the ordinary state of 
legal practical science in a nation of fifty millions 
of people, occupying the heart of Europe, and 
boasting and boasted of, as a most philosophical 
and profound people ! In the philosophy of social 
life, in the science of personal freedom and security, 
it is, however, evident that they have yet to take 
the first step. This case, as I have observed, is 
not a solitary one. The same process is daily 








218 


GERMAN 


going on in all the secret courts of the country. It 
were easy to select a host of cases of exactly similar 
character; but this has been taken because, not 
only was it so barefacedly tyrannical on the part of 
the petty court which tried Wendt, but because, 
through the rare exertions of the attorney, the 
decisions of these grave and learned courts were 
obtained, and were so ludicrously opposed to each 
other on the very same written evidence, as to 
occasion much laughter throughout the countrv. 
Bv these means, the case has become one well 
known, free from any doubt, and therefore have I 
selected it. 

Here, then, is a system established by the differ¬ 
ent governments, for a whole vast population, of 
secret judges, secret evidence, without juries, with¬ 
out oral pleading, without any admittance of the 
daylight and publicity. The petty judges, who are 
thus empowered to seize, incarcerate, examine, 
threaten, and torture—ay, and on the suggestion of 
the most worthless and malicious wretch alive— 
have also power to seize too on the estates of the 
accused, and to make those chargeable to all the 
expenses which they, by arbitrary and protracted 
proceedings, please to heap upon them. 

u But,” say the German lawyers, “ there is still 
appeal against this.” Yes, but how and when? 
Before there can be appeal, there must be a deci¬ 
sion ; and we see in this case, that on the slightest 
and most contemptible evidence, a man of sub- 


EXPERIENCES. 


219 


stance and of fair character, as the world goes, 
may be dragged from his house, his family, his 
trade; may he threatened, cudgeled, maltreated, 
cajoled, and driven almost mad, for jive years , 
before any chance of appeal is given. An innocent 
man, having, at the instigation of a wretch who has 
first poisoned the poor man’s wife, and nearly all 
his family—been accused of these very crimes him¬ 
self, shall be condemned to the most horrible of 
deaths, and only be saved by a rare instance of 
generosity and preseverance in his lawyer. How 
many are the cases in which such lawyers could be 
found? How many are the cases likely to be, 
where people of no property, and on whom the 
foulest suspicions are thrown by the very courts of 
justice, will find any one to trouble himself about 
them ? How many are the cases where the govern¬ 
ments are known to have a desire to condemn and 
punish particular persons, which any one will dare 
to interfere with ? 

The very idea is terrific, of a country filled with 
nothing but secret tribunals, where such power is 
given to the petty judges, where so much play is 
left to the private passions, avarice, and corrupt 
inclinations of men. To Englishmen the idea of 
falling into the hands of such tribunals would be 
overwhelming. Our worst culprits have the hope, 
at the farthest, of being brought out to the face of 
day in six months; and then, in the presence of the 
whole public, face to face with their accusers, their 





220 


GERMAN 


judges sitting aloft in the eye of the sun, of God, 
and all ^ood men, and then and there being con¬ 
demned only on the fullest actual evidence. Our 
political prisoners, under the worst governments, 
know and feel that in the secret and close tribunals 
none shall dare to practise cruelties or cudgelings 
upon them; and that when they come forth to trial, 
the active sympathies and presence of the whole 
public,—made present, if not in person, yet by the 
press,—shall hold in terror and speech the worst- 
disposed rulers. 

But if, with all these safeguards, we have seen 
the daring and shameless attempts which have 
been made, in times of peculiar hardness and poli¬ 
tical excitement, to pack, overawe, browbeat, and, 
by the lavishly paid services of unprincipled and 
dazzling advocates, to mislead juries, what must be 
the hope and condition of the victims of govern¬ 
ments and bad judges, where there are none of 
these? where all is secret, and where, by the 
implication of property, so much food is adminis¬ 
tered, not only to the malicious but to the greedy 
passions of low officials? Under such circum¬ 
stances no Englishman would hold his life at a 
farthing’s purchase. 

We see here a tradesman accused of the most 
horrible crimes by his own apprentice. The trades¬ 
man is testified by his neighbours, to be a steady, 
industrious man, bearing a good character, and 
being on the best terms with his family. The only 



EXPERIENCES. 


221 


exceptions that could be made to him was, that he 
was penurious, and had on some occasion practised 
some little tricks of trade against another trades¬ 
man. These tricks, which ought to have been 
punished in their proper degree, though it does not 
appear that the person whom they were practised 
on ever thought it worth his while to do it, were 
by no means such as to warrant any court to proceed 
against a man’s whole property and life. On the 
contrary, they were such as the compiler says are 
too common amongst his class; and were very 
probably such, as too often, in our country, are 
rather laughed at than punished, as something 
clever in trade. But who "was this sole evidence, 
on whom the court of justice thought fit to take 
up, imprison—and for five years, torture, threaten, 
and confine a tradesman with a large family, and 
of more than average fair character? It was the 
man’s apprentice — declared by the whole neigh¬ 
bourhood to have been a scoundrel and a liar from 
his boyhood! A villain so confirmed, that he 
robbed his own stepfather, and was guilty of such 
evil practices in his master’s house, that he turned 
him out of it. This fellow, covered with infamy 
from his childhood, and smarting with a sense of 
his just exposure from his master’s hands, avowing 
also to the very judges that he entertained a spirit 
of vengeance against the mistress whom he mur¬ 
dered (as he pretended at the master’s suggestion); 
this villain was the sole evidence against this man. 






222 


GERMAN 


Now, there is no judge,—there is no country 
justice, in this or any other country where there is 
an open course of criminal prosecution, be he a Sir 
John Shallow himself;—there is no beadle, not 
even a Dogberry, who would allow or act on such 
very absurd evidence for a moment. 

But had he not had this previons damning 
weight of infamy against him, the conduct of the 
fellow was so utterly base and perjured before the 
judges,—he so lied and retracted his lies, and then 
repeated them; he charged, first his master, then 
the journeyman, then himself with the crime; then 
shifted the charges again altogether,—freed the 
journeyman, made himself and master accomplices; 
then admitted his master’s innocence, and then 
again denied it,—that no honest and uprightly- 
intentioned judge could have held him for two 
days as fitting evidence in the most suspicious 
case, but would have handed him over, for his pre¬ 
varication and perjury, to the house of correction. 

Yet did these secret judges, on the sole and 
eternally-changing evidence of this most hardened 
scoundrel, retain the poor, weak cabinet-maker for 
five years in prison,—bringing him up whenever 
this lying rogue chose to make a fresh assertion 
against him; for this, and in spite of his tears, 
his sobs, his protestations of innocence and entrea¬ 
ties for justice, threaten him with corporeal punish¬ 
ment,—and inflict it too, if he would not consent 
to criminate himself. 


EXPERIENCES. 


223 


This practice of compelling men to criminate 
themselves, so opposed to every principle of truth 
and nobility in the human heart, and to the whole 
principle and practice of our criminal judicature, 
is just what we should look for in a system of 
secret courts; and it is what I have observed in 
almost every case which has come to my know¬ 
ledge in Germany.* It must be recollected, that 
not only the man, but his property, was at stake. 
These secret judges had taken possession of his 
house, and effects; and it was out of these that the 
charges for all these sittings, hearings, and the 
long documents recording them, were to be paid. 
This is one of the crying sins of Germany,—this is 
that scribery of which the people complain, from 
one end to the other of the country. That sj'stem 
of everlasting papers, by which the government 
has contrived to find employment for as many 
dependent officials as it can press into its service, 
and thus converted them into an army of locusts 


* In the case noticed by Mr. Laing, to which X referred 
before giving this, he adds—“In this case, a curious specimen 
of the German mode of bringing out the guilt of an accused 
party is given in the 12th number of the Itzehoe Wochenblad. 
One of the prisoners is brought, after long solitary confinement, 
in irons before the public functionary, who has the duty of 
prosecuting criminals, who says—“ There thou art with those 
huge fists which murdered this nobleman; thy comrade, Wilier, 
has now confessed all. If thou dost not confess too, thou shalt 
be,” etc. etc.— Tour in Sweden, pp. 133-4. 

Be it remembered that this prisoner, thus removed, had 
been confined nearly seven years; that his comrade had not 
confessed, and that both were finally acquitted of the charge! 






224 


GERMAN 


to eat up the people. These men did not put an 
end to Wendt’s examinations till they had con¬ 
sumed by their charges all his property, and sold 
it; and it was part of the injustice of the Gottingen 
decision, that it not only condemned him to be 
broken to pieces on the wheel, but distinctly stated 
that his property was justly forfeited to defray the 
charges of all the sittings, hearings, scribery , and 
appeals which had been had recourse to. 

Passing then from this strange scene of secret 
prosecution, we come to the appeal that we ar.e told 
exists; and we ask again, how and what is this 
appeal? Can the appellant come, not only with his 
injuries, but with his witnesses, and his advocates, 
personally into an open and free court? Nothing 
of the kind, nothing of the sort is contemplated or 
exists. The minutes of his secret examinations, 
which have been made by his secret judges,—be 
they as base, as interested, as shameless, as those of 
poor Wendt plainly were,—these minutes, which 
they have had the power to form as they please in 
their secret dens, are copied out and sent off to a 
distant university, to be examined and decided 
upon by the Professors of law there. No new trial 
is instituted. The accused and the accusers are 
never seen by the new judges; the living witnesses 
are not brought before them to be interrogated; 
the living counsel, instructed in the whole case of 
the client, is not heard;—those secretly concocted 
papers, which may be, as they were in this instance, 


EXPERIENCES. 


225 


one mass of festering corruption, are all that the 
new judges have to look at and decide upon. If 
fraud and wilful injustice have taken place, and are 
already daubed over, there they remain,—there is 
no mortal power of detecting them, and the new 
decision is only a blind iteration, on grounds that 
may be altogether false. 

And who too are these new judges? Men, 
probably possessing, some of them, a great repu¬ 
tation for having published most able books on 
the theories of law, but who are at the same time, 
in proportion to their celebrity, overwhelmed 
with their daily business as lecturers in the col¬ 
leges; and if not with that, most certainly with 
writing great books with the hope of bringing 
hearers to their lectures. The judges are thus 
preoccupied, and the papers through which they 
are called to wade, and to hunt out the truth, are 
stupendous: 

“Monstrum horrendum, informe,ingens, cui lumen ademtum.” 

Menzel, their historian, says that such are the 
monstrous masses of these documents, that they 
fairlv meet over the heads of the writers, and choke 
up their offices. The consequence is, that it re¬ 
quires from one to two years, as in this case, for 
these busy, though laborious, professors to dig 
their way through these official mountains of paper, 
while the poor wretch is probably lying in his 
dungeon,—and when the decision comes, it is 
probably worth—nothing. 

Q 






226 


GERMAN 


In this case, the two Universities and the Court 
of Appeal gave each such a different decision on 
the very same papers, after nearly three years pon¬ 
dering over them, as set the whole of Germany 
laughing. The Gottingen professors condemned 
Wendt to death on the wheel, as guilty of the worst 
crimes he was charged with, and to the just for¬ 
feiture of all his property to defray the charges of 
his being hunted down to destruction. The Hei¬ 
delberg declared him quite guiltless of the crime of 
attempting to poison his mother-in-law, Kiichenthal, 
but though they freed him from the charge of 
poisoning his wife, they suspected him of it, but 
liberated him from paying any law charges but 
their own. 

This was the most singular decision which perhaps 
was ever made by the oblique judgment of lawyers. 
They were called to decide on the evidence before 
them, and they went out of the way to suspect what 
it could not establish; and what was most singular 
of all, they totally freed Wendt from the charge of 
attempting to poison his mother-in-law, while they 
suspected him of poisoning his wife; whereas, it is 
evident that whoever w r as guilty of one was guilty 
of both crimes, they being committed by the same 
agent , at the same time , and with the same means. 
Last of all, comes the Grand Court of Appeal, and 
on the evidence of the very same documents, de¬ 
clares him totally innocent, and frees him from 
all costs. Yet, finding him totally innocent, and 


EXPERIENCES. 


097 

entitled to stand free from all charges, does this 
same court refuse to grant him recompense for his 
losses and for his injuries, which, if he were inno¬ 
cent, by the very evidence before them and on 
which they decided, were of the most outrageous 
and barbarous character that ever were heard of. 
The highest court of the state, in fact, acknow¬ 
ledging by its decision the arbitrary injustice of the 
court which tried him, and that he ought never to 
have been subjected to its inflictions, leaves him an 
innocent, but a ruined man ! 

Such is the established system of criminal judi¬ 
cature in philosophical Germany, and such are its 
fruits! Yet, though the people groan under it and 
pray for its abolition, the great, philosophical Pro¬ 
fessors go on lauding it to the skies, and as far 
superior, and more conducive not only to the ends 
of justice, but to the security of the subject , than the 
English or the French systems! jVfuch of the 
blindness or obliquity which can bring men to so 
preposterous an assertion, may possibly arise from 
the effect of being bred up in this system, to land 
it and to commend it. Such breeding has great 
power over the understanding, and has, from age 
to age, made of the greatest men the advocates of 
the grossest absurdities. But it must not be for¬ 
gotten too, that these law professors owe their 
appointments, their fixed salaries, their hopes of 
honours, and advancement in every wav, to the 
government; and no man has lived long in a 







*2-28 


GERMAN 


German university town without seeing that these 
learned professors are by no means dreamy on these 
heads. The fixed salaries of German professors 
are generally small, and they are taught to look to 
the acquisition of a large class of hearers, for the 
augmentation of their income. But as this is not 
always effected, and in some departments of science 
or literature never can be, it is curious to see the 
manoeuvring and coquetting with the different 
governments on the part of professors to obtain an 
advancement of salary. Soon as a professor, by 
his books or his lectures, manages to obtain a pretty 
good reputation, and a great deal of this is often 
conjured up by themselves, by good friends prac¬ 
tising u the caw me, caw thee,” with mutual vigour 
in the periodicals—he then keeps a sharp look-out 
for a call from a university of some other state. 
This call can be, and no doubt often is, promoted 
and even elicited by the suitable suggestions of an 
influential friend in the right quarter. No sooner 
is the call obtained than care is taken to narrate 
abroad that Professor so-and-so has had such an 
one. Articles appear in journals and newspapers 
commenting on the great and splendid reputation 
which this learned professor has gained. How 
far and wide his fame resounds! and how little 
those living in the same place, and seeing the 
simple and plodding habits of the man, can have 
any adequate ideas of this gigantic renown, which 
swells against all the most distant borders of the 


EXPERIENCES. 


229 


country—nay, has become even European. The 
good people at home wonder at all this; but think, 
O that is the way—“ no prophet has honour in 
his own country,” and begin to feel very proud 
that their town has produced so great a man, and 
regret that they should lose him just as they have 
found out what a great man he really is. All this 
having duly operated, — become the talk of the 
taverns and smoking resorts of the whole district, 
when the good man himself thinks that it has suffi¬ 
ciently penetrated to the ears of government, he 
then announces the fact himself. He humbly, and 
in duty, informs the gracious Prince of the call with 
which he has been honoured; expresses the grati¬ 
tude he feels for all the Prince’s former favours, 
how dearly he is bound to the honour and interest 
of the university, how it grieves him to leave it,— 
but—his family is growing large, he looks forward 
to the expenses of educating and establishing his 
sons—and as the new call offers him a higher 
remuneration ; he fears, however reluctantly, that 
he shall be obliged to accept it. 

If the thing has operated to his satisfaction, he 
gets an addition to his salary, and stays. It is 
then as loudly sounded abroad that the gracious 
Prince, duly sensible of the great reputation and 
invaluable services of the professor, has refused 
to part with him at any rate, has augmented his 
allowance, and that nothing now will induce him 
to tear himself away from the midst of those 





•230 


GERMAN 


beloved friends, citizens, and pupils, where all his 
affections lie. 

All this is very natural, but very curious and 
amusing. 

Nothing could maintain such a system for a 
single week in a country with the slightest freedom 
of constitution, speech, or pen; in a country which 
did not in everv wav, as well as this, as I have 
shewn, bind down the whole mass of subjects 
with the bonds of both fear and interest, bind them 
down every limb, and every faculty—bind down 
tongue, hand, pen, body and soul, present activity 
and future hope. 

That all these crossed and plaited bonds do not, 
however, prevent a very uneasy feeling in the 
country, I will now shew, and that in a peculiar 
and novel form. 




EXPERIENCES. 


231 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE LIVING POLITICAL POETS OF GERMANY.* 


Liberty ! ha ! that sounds most wondrous fine ! 

It is the day’s great word.Away ! away ! — 

O ye are pregnant with whole worlds divine, 

Yet ’neath the yoke your necks so fondly lay. 

What! to be free?—thereon we scarce dare reason ; 

Speak of it not till Caution’s self be stronger; 

But, write of it!—ha ! that is rankest treason ! 

In short, this watch of Freedom—goes no longer ! 

Ortlepp s Songs of a JDay-Watchman. 

Amongst the many curious phases which the present 
social and political state of Germany presents, 
there is none more singular than that exhibited in 
its political poetry. The system of paternal govern¬ 
ment is there so completely organized, and so beau¬ 
tifully carried out, that scarcely a restless motion 
can be detected in that great stalled ox—the Public, 
and if a groan escape it, it is so modulated by 
custom, that it may be mistaken rather for a low of 
too much rest and fulness, than an expression of 
pain. The police are so admirably distributed and 
posted in every city, village, street, field, lane, 
wood, and public-house; the censorship is so 

* Originally published in the Athenceum. 








232 


GERMAN 


alert at its station in every printing and newspaper 
office, that not a sigh can escape through the press. 
The great net woven by the German governments 
for the accommodation, as they call it, of that 
many-headed animal, the Public, has been so scien¬ 
tifically constructed that not one of those many heads 
but is caught in a mesh, and the whole living fry 
is dragged along with wondrous ease. Then, this 
great and heterogeneous fry is not only so cun¬ 
ningly netted, and scientifically dragged along, but 
it must be confessed, is so well fed, that he would 
seem to be a verv unreasonable sort of fellow who 

V 

would wish them out of their net at all. The 
learned are well supplied with professorships, 
librarianships, and secretaryships; the nobles with 
commands in army, and offices in cabinet and 
bureau; the middle ranks are all equally engaged 
and employed by these paternal governments in the 
thousand and never-wanting posts in the magis¬ 
tracy, the post-office, the police, the customs, the 
stewardships of forests and domains; nay, the very 
members of the common herd are universally dis¬ 
tributed through all the more ordinary employ¬ 
ments of justice-rooms, post-offices, railroads, 
travelling posts; as watchers of roads, of streets, of 
highways; as gens-d’armes, parish schoolmasters, 
scavengers, ay, as chimneysweeps, which are all 
in the patronage, or under the surveillance of 
government, that well may people ask, What do 
they want more ? 




EXPERIENCES. 


233 


Yet there are, as there always have been and 
always will be, in this discontented world, those 
very unreasonable people, who insist that a great 
deal more is wanted for the true development of 
the true happiness and glory of a nation. They 
think that the grand thing needed is that govern¬ 
ments should let three-fourths of its present con¬ 
cerns alone, and leave them to the enterprise and 
competition of the public; and that they should 
grant the four great? ? ??—as they are significantly 
called—the four great demands of Free Consti¬ 
tutions, a Free Press, Free Speech, and Open 
Trials by Jury. On this the governments fairly 
lift their hands and eyebrows in astonishment, and 
through their hired scribes of the press, cry— 
“ Look at France! see what Free Presses and Free 
Speech and Free Constitutions, did there? What 
blood ! what horrors ! what confusions !” u Nay,” 
reply the discontented, “ that was the previous work 
of despotism.” “ Look at England !” exclaim the 
government scribes, 11 see, with all its free institu¬ 
tions, what a debt! what continual agitation! what 
horrid masses of poverty in its manufacturing dis¬ 
tricts, and in its very capital!” “ Set all that 

down/’ retort the advocates of freedom, a to inva¬ 
sions of the British Constitution, and not to the 
free constitution itself; and then set on the other 
side—what national wealth! what national activity! 
what fleets of merchantmen, what merchant princes! 
what colonies! what a stupendous empire stretch- 







*234 


GERMAN 


ing round the whole globe! What a noble fabric 
of free mind is there raised! How every man, 
however oppressed by debts and exactions he may 
be, dare, like a man, look his governors in the 
face, and at least demand redress, justice, and the 
proper administration of a representative constitu¬ 
tion!” They will insist that men who go about 
with bridles in their mouths, are not men, are not 
even horses, but something lower and less noble, 
that is—mules. They will insist, that if whole 
nations are to be held like children in go-carts and 
leading-strings, and never suffered to arrive at a 
majority like other children, they will cease, spite 
of all coercion, to be children, but will not become 
nations of men—for Nature will not be resisted 
with impunity—but of idiots and drivellers; that it 
is only by the exercise of all their faculties, and 
amongst them pre-eminently their faculty of free¬ 
dom, that men and nations acquire their full 
strength, display their full powers, and attain the 
glory and happiness which God and Nature have 
placed within their reach. Nay, they add, that 
the very stalled ox will be visited in his pampered 
rest, with visions of open fields, green mountains, 
and river banks; the caged bird (and what objects 
on earth so wretched as caged eagles!) even in a 
golden cage, will dream of woods and wilds of 
w ide liberty, and languish after them ; and the 
very fish in the most fine and philosophical net, 
will think of the broad space of waters in which 


EXPERIENCES. 


235 


they have revelled, of the clear springs which gush 
into them, of the depths of sweet gloom beneath 
the shadows of woods where they have ranged, 
and will flash and flap in agony at the tantalizing 
idea. 

So think the free spirits of Germany. So think, 
no doubt, thousands who, themselves provided by 
paternal governments with all the creature com¬ 
forts of office, dare not, and do not, utter such 
ideas; and indeed, what help ? The system, as we 
have said, is so thorough and artistically perfected; 
the numbers who are engaged in it by all the hopes 
and comforts of life, are so numerous; the pressure 
is so equal and universal, that it can be no ordinary 
combination of powders or circumstances which can 
alter it. The paternal tile which is laid upon the 
acanthus of freedom, is so stout and broad, that it 
is impossible for this acanthus to heave it off, or to 
bore its way through it; it does, therefore, only 
what it can—it curls up all round its edges, and 
gives birth, not to a new order of architecture, but 
to a new order of poets ! 

These are the men of whom we are now about to 
speak. There never, indeed, have been wanting in 
Germany, poets who, in their songs, and even 
epics, have fanned the fire of freedom, and breathed 
through their fellow men that hallowed soul of 
liberty, without which men and nations must die 
to all that is great and noble. From the days of 
Walther von dor Vogelweide, these men have never 





236 


GERMAN 


been wanting. Walther himself, Hans Sachs, the 
tower-fast Luther, in his hymns as much as in his 
sermons or his Table-Talk, Weckerlin, Martin 
Opitz, Logau, Johan Riss, Gryphius, Assmann; 
and amongst those of the revival of German poetry, 
Klopstock, Gleim, Burger, Herder, and a host of 
others, to Schiller, whose noble soul, thoroughly 
permeated by all that was great and generous, 
acted on the mind of his cotemporaries like a 
summer heat, making it thrust forth its shoots on 
all sides, and ripening it to richness, even when no 
political word was spoken. Even Goethe, who 
sunk into the worldling and the courtier, and while 
the thunders of the war of oppression and of the 
war of freedom bellowed round his studv, sate 
calmly, lifting neither hand nor voice for the Father- 
land, but entered in his journal, as the visitants of 
one of his latter birth-days, the two words, “ Met- 
ternich” and “ Hardenberg! ”—even this great 
defaulter in his country’s cause, in some of his 
earlier and better works, had contributed to the 
great mass of liberal opinion; and Uhland had, 
both as popular representative in the national 
chamber, and in his ballads, made his high and 
independent voice heard like a trumpet; and far and 
wide were those trumpet-tones heard, and felt, and 
responded to. Even on Austria he called boldly 
and sternly— 

Up, mighty Austria! 

Forwards! do like the rest! 

Forwards! 


EXPERIENCES. 


237 


And while Uhland sits in his age, freed by his here¬ 
ditary property from any dependence on princes, 
he is honoured throughout all Germany as some¬ 
thing far above a prince—the genuine patriot poet— 
the most glorious and divine amongst the titles of 
men. We shall soon see that even from the very 
heart of Austria a zealous echo to his fiery appeal 
came back to him and the whole nation, and be¬ 
sides, on all hands, glowed in the poetry of Platen, 
Borne, Rau, Heine, Hagen, Deeg, Welter, Lenau, 
Immermann, Chamisso, Freiligrath, and a host of 
others, the Uhlandish and the national spirit. But 
these, for the most part, uttered their political 
oracles either amid the heap of their other poetic 
inspirations, presented the little glittering rose of 
patriotism wrapped in the bouquet of many poetic 
flowers, or clothed their patriotic calls in general 
terms. There were more fiery, or more impatient 
spirits, who resorted to poetry as to a special and 
exclusive vehicle of their political discontent,—who 
looked around them, and saw scarcely any other 
mode of reaching the ears of their countrymen with 
the words of liberty. The pen of the censor had 
become omnipotent over the pen of every other 
writer. It hung, in the shape of a Black Eagle , 
over all the other feathered creatures, were they 
poets or politicians—did they speak exciting words 
in the midst of their own volumes, or in the columns 
of a journal. Most of those writers of whom we 
have spoken, especially those of late years, had 






238 


GERMAN 


many grievous secret wounds to complain of from 
the point of the censor’s pen—from the great pen 
plucked from the wings of the Black Eagles. 
They could tell of much Burking in the dark; of 
many a plaster clapped on their mouths in the 
secret passages and dens of the censorship; of 
much suffocation and strangulation. The class of 
young and ardent spirits of whom we now speak 
determined, therefore, not to expose themselves to 
the talons of the Black Eagles—to the scalping and 
mutilating processes of the censorship; but to con¬ 
centrate all their fire in small compass; to print 
their little books beyond the jurisdicton of the 
national literary anatomists. They considered that 
it is one thing for creatures to be strangled in the 
dark, and the stranglers then to cry, “ These were 
abortions !”—one thing for honest men to be stabbed 
in the dark, and the murderers, clothed in police 
costume, then to cry, “Ay, these were thieves!” 
and another thing, when the truth was fairly issued 
to the daylight, for the hardiest and most hypocri¬ 
tical rogue of them all to dare to suppress it. They 
therefore printed their little volumes either in the 
free city of Hamburg or in Switzerland, and the 
result justified their calculations. From Hamburg, 
from the bold house of Hoffmann and Campe, or 
from Bern, Zurich, Schaffhausen, etc., accordingly 
came flying whole showers of these poetico-political 
volumes. They were everywhere eagerly caught 
up, and are now to be had in all shops. Not one of 




EXPERIENCES. 


239 


them would have ever seen the light if the clawjs 
of the Black Eagles could have been set upon them 
in manuscript; but once in the light, no man is so 
bold and honest as to say, “ These are the prophets 
of liberty, and must, therefore, be stoned to death !” 
They are, and will remain. They are adopted by 
the people, and will do their work, be that more or 
less. These little tomes are almost as numerous 
as the snowflakes from the Swiss Alps themselves: 
like them, many, indeed, fall and melt on the spot. 
Others have excited the most livelv feeling;, and 
are become generally popular. What is most re¬ 
markable is, that the first, and perhaps the most 
powerful, the earliest, and by the others regarded 
as the head and leader of the school, is not only a 
nobleman, but a nobleman of Austria. 

Count Auersperg, better known by his assumed 
poetical cognomen of Anastatius Grim,is well known 
in that character as a poet of great elegance and 
fancy, but in this little volume called 4 Spaziergange 
eines Wiener Poeten’—Walks of a Viennese Poet— 
he spoke in a strain of equal fire and boldness. 
True, he did not put on the title-page of that little 
volume of 106 pages even the nom dc guerre of 
Anastatius Grim. It w r as issued to the world from 
the press of Hamburg anonymously; but it was 
issued at a time when a single spark was enough to 
kindle and spread a wide and devouring fire. It was 
about the time of the Parisian Revolution of July 
1830. This rapid and brilliant revolution went like 







240 


GERMAN 


an electric flash throughout all Europe. All people 
who had grievances to complain of from their 
governments—and which had them not?—raised 
their heads, and called loudly for redress and con- 
stitutional rights. Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, 
Poland, Spain and Portugal, England, Italy, and 
almost every state of Germany, rose in active com¬ 
motion. For two years the ferment went on. The 
Belgians achieved their object; England reformed 
her parliament; the different states of Germany, 
even to Bavaria and Prussia, were shaken with 
political agitations for popular chambers, freedom 
of the press, and the like, which, in some of the 
smaller states, were, to a degree, successful. But 
the princes and their armies, both of soldiers and 
police, were too strong. Poland, Italy, and Swit¬ 
zerland felt the heavy hands of Russia and Austria, 
and the larger German states were coerced. The 
great Radical meeting at the Castle of Hambach, 
in Rhenish Bavaria, in 1832, gave a pretext to the 
princes of the German Confederation: the reign of 
arrests and police severity began. The patriots fled 
on all sides, and press and speech were put into 
their ancient bondage. 

Exactly at this crisis appeared the second edition 
of Count Auersperg’s ‘Walks.’ Its effect may be 
imagined. For a time it seems to have been secretly 
devoured with the keen relish which the sacred 
writer so well described when he said, “ Stolen 
waters are sweet.” At length, however, as the 


EXPERIENCES.- 


241 


restrictions on political freedom were continued; as 
the promises of the Princes of free constitutions 
were falsified; when Hanover, robbed of the con¬ 
stitution given it by our William the Fourth, cried 
to the “ Bund” for help against despotism, and 
received only the startling reply, that the Bund 
could take no cognizance of any complaint which 
did not come through a government channel,—in 
other words, that the Confederation was a confede¬ 
ration of princes, not for, but against the people; 
then broke forth a tribe of zealous followers in 
the Count’s train. The most effective of these, 
however, are such as have appeared within the last 
two years. 

We must give a specimen or two of the Count. 
He wanders forth into the country to breathe the 
fresh air, and seated on the Cobenzlberg above 
Vienna, writes “ Spring Thoughts.” Charmed by 
the landscape before him, he wishes that the Em¬ 
peror were sitting even there, and would cry to 
the vale beneath — “ Austria! thou Land of the 
East, let it be day in thee!” He recals the great 
deeds of its armies, and asks whether in its cam¬ 
paigns, Right, and Light, and Freedom, always 
stood as warrior allies in its ranks? to which he 
is obliged to respond, that “the answer is not 
sweet.” In the next poem, however, he so admi¬ 
rably touches off* Metternich, that we must translate 
wholly— 

R 







242 


GERMAN 


THE SALOON SCENE. 

’Tis evening; flame the chandeliers in the ornamented hall; 
From the crystal of tall mirrors thousandfold their splendours 
fall. 

In the sea of radiance moving, almost floating, round are seen 
Lovely ladies young and joyous, ancient dames of solemn mien. 

And amongst them staidly pacing, with their orders graced, 
elate, 

Here the rougher sons of war, there peaceful servants of the 
state, 

But observed by all observers, wandering ’mid them one I view 
Whom none to approach dare venture, save th’ elect, illus¬ 
trious few. 

It is he who holds the rudder of proud Austria’s ship of state, 
Who mid crowned heads in congress, acting for her, sits sedate. 
But now see him! O how modest, how polite to one and all; 
Gracious, courtly, smiling round him, on the great and on the 
small. 

The stars upon his bosom glitter faintly in the circle’s blaze, 
But a smile so mild and friendly ever on his features plays, 
Both when from a lovely bosom now he takes a budding rose, 
And now realms, like flowers withered, plucks and scatters 
as he goes. 

Equally bewitching sounds it, when fair locks his praise attends, 
Or when he, from heads anointed, kingly crowns so calmy rends. 
Ay, the happy mortal seemeth in celestial joys to swim 
Whom his word to Elba doometh, or to Munkat’s dungeons 
grim. 

O could Europe now but see him! so obliging, so gallant, 

As the man in martial raiment, as the church’s priestly saint, 
As the state’s star-covered servant, by his smile to heaven 
advanced, 

As the ladies, old and young, are all enraptured and entranced! 


EXPERIENCES. 243 

Man o th’ Empire! Man o’th’Council! as thou art in kindly 
mood, 

Shew’st thyself just now so gracious, unto all so wondrous good, 
See! without, a humble client to thy princely gate hath pressed, 
Who with token of thy favour burns to be supremely blessed. 

Nay! thou hast no cause of terror! he is honest and discreet, 
Carries no concealed dagger ’neath his garments smooth and neat. 
It is Austria’s People !—open—full of truth and honour—see ! 
How he prays most mildly, “ May I —take the freedom to befree?" 

In “Priests and Parsons,” and in “The Fat and 
Lean,” the Count compares the good and mis¬ 
chievous clergy, expressing his love and reverence 
for the one class, and his indignant hatred of the 
other. It is a curious fact, that while popery has 
been growing more and more popular, and winning 
proselytes where it has ceased politically, and its 
old features have become forgotten, in those coun¬ 
tries where it has continued most prominent, it has 
been suddenly attacked by the people, as in Spain, 
or so far as any interference of the papal power is 
concerned, has been, by the very governments, 
politically annihilated. In the two great catholic 
states of Germany, Austria and Bavaria, where 
the mass of the people, and where the monarchs 
themselves are strictest catholics, there, though 
the religion is upheld, the papal power has been 
put down by the governments. Popery and the 
Jesuits are especial objects of detestation with the 
German liberals, and they do not forget that Met- 
ternich, the most wily of all wily ministers, was 
the man who hit on the grandest discovery in poli- 

r 2 









244 


GERMAN 


tical despostism ever yet made—that of converting 
National Education into the basis and great engine 
of slavery. 

When despotic princes began to tremble before 
the advance of popular knowledge, Metternich only 
smiled. He called to mind the words of Solomon 
—“ Bring up a child in the way that he should go, 
and when he is old he will not depart from it.” 
“ That/’ thought he, “ which is good for one way, 
is equally good for another. Bring up a people 
in any way, and when they are old they wall not 
depart from it. Here, then, is a great political light! 
Seize the principle—apply it to the nation, instead 
of letting your enemies, the liberals, apply it. 
Bend the twig while it is young, and all the powers 
on earth shall never be able to raise it again!” 

Austria was the fist to adopt this grand disco¬ 
very—the principle of a Government Education as a 
National Education , and that with a success which 
caused it to be immediately copied, and carried out 
with the most conclusive results in Prussia; where, 
while the unsuspicious liberals of England have 
been watching to see the growth of a universal 
knowledge amid the people blow up the Prussian 
despotism, it has been, by a subtly adopted system, 
by which the national schoolmasters became half 
schoolmasters and more than half policemen, perhaps 
riveted for ever. We have alluded to this subject 
merely to shew why the modern political poets 
so bitterly denounce popery and priestcraft, and, 


EXPERIENCES. 


245 


* 


passing over Count Auersperg’s poems on these 
subjects, shall content ourselves with two short 
ones—the ‘ Mauthcordon’ (Cordon of Customs) 
and ‘The Censor.’ 

THE CUSTOMS’ CORDON. 

Our country is a garden, which the timid gardener’s doubt 
With an iron palisado has enclosed round about; 

But without live folk, whom entrance to this garden could 
make glad, 

And a guest who loves sweet scenery, cannot be so very bad. 

Black and yellow lists go stretching round our borders grim 
and tight; 

Custom-house and beadle watchers guard our frontiers day 
and night — 

Sit by day before the tax-house, lurk by night i’ th’ long 
damp grass, 

Silent, crouching on their stomachs, lowering round on all who 
pass. 

That no single foreign dealer, foreign wine, tobacco bale, 
Foreign silk, or foreign linen, slily steal within their pale ; 
That a guest than all more hated, set not foot upon our 
earth,— 

Thought, which in a foreign soil, in foreign light has had its 
birth! 

Finally the watch grows weary, when the ghostly hour draws 
near, 

For in our good land how many from all spectres shrink in 
fear! 

Cold and cutting blows the north wind, on each limb doth 
faintness fall; 

To the pothouse steal the watchers, where both wine and 
comfort call. 







246 


GERMAN 


See! there start fortli from the bushes, from the night 
wind’s shrouding wings, 

Men with heavy packs all laden, carts up-heaped with richest 
things. 

Silent as the night-fog creeping, through the noiseless tracks 
they wend; 

See! there too goes Thought amongst them—towards his 
mission’s sacred end ! 

With the smugglers must he travel,—he who nothing hides 
from sight! 

With the murky mists go creeping—he the son of Day and 
Light! 

Oh, come forth, ye thirsty drinkers! weary watchers, out! 
—this way! 

Fling yourselves in rank and file—post yourselves in armed 
array! 

Point your muskets! sink your colours, with the freeman’s 
solemn pride ! 

Let the drums give joyful thunder—cast the jealous barriers 
wide! 

That with green palms all victorious, proud and free in raiment 
bright, 

Through the hospitable country Thought may wander scat¬ 
tering light! 

The Count extends his walks mid the charms of 
the spring, and asks when shall the spring of 
freedom bloom thus in his country? He sits in 
the garden bower of a country inn, enjoying the 
delicious scene before him; a stranger approaches 
with a friendly face, and seats himself beside him; 
but, suspecting that he may be a police spy, the 
Count hastens away, and, plunging into a neigh¬ 
bouring wood, weeps burning tears over the spirit 


t 


EXPERIENCES. 


247 


of distrust which the government infuses between 
man and man. He paces the field of Aspern, and 
thinks how the freedom of Austria was achieved 
there only to be lost again. A swallow flying 
southward awakes in him the question “ Whither?” 
which is echoed by another question—“Whither 
are the Princes of Austria conducting the country V’ 
To which he gives them answer: To a reign of 
hypocrites, where no man dare look another in the 
face,—where the monks’ censers are busy wafting 
the incense of flattery,—where geese flourish, and 
are never plucked, for there is no press, and no 
need of pens, except for the tax-gatherers; where 
the professor shrinks from his own students, who 
present before him but two classes—savage canni¬ 
bals, and youths who still have some ideas; where 
an Imperial edict is passed to extinguish all lamps, 
as people can very well find the way to their 
mouths without them ; and where priests rejoice in 
the perpetual midnight, exclaiming “What a beau¬ 
tiful day!” but the very dead remove with coffin 
and shroud to a more genial resting-place. In 
‘The Victory of Freedom,’ ‘The Hymn to Austria,’ 

‘ Maria Theresia,’ ‘The Statue of Joseph II./ ‘The 
Right of Hospitality/ ‘Address to the Emperor/ 
etc., abound the same noble, free, and generous 
thoughts, the same keen irony; but we must hold 
to our purpose, and give only— 






248 


GERMAN 


THE CENSOR. 

Many a hero-priest is shewn us in the storied times of yore, 

Who the word of Truth undaunted through the world unceasing 
bore; 

Who in halls of kings have shouted,—“ Fie ! I scent lost free¬ 
dom’s grave!” 

And to many a high dissembler bluntly cried, “Thou art a 
knave! ” 

Were I but such Freedom’s champion, shrouded in the monk¬ 
ish frock, 

Straight unto the Censor’s dwelling I must hie, and loudly 
knock; 

To the man must say,—“Arch-scoundrel, down at once upon 
thy knees, 

For thou art a vile offender—down ! confess thy villanies.” 

And I hear the wretch already how he wipes his vileness clean — 

“ O your reverence is in error, I am not the man you mean! 

I omit no mass, no duty, fill my post with service true; 

Fm no lewd one, no blasphemer, murderer, thief, or godless 
Jew!” 


But my zeal indignant flashes from my heart in flaming tones. 

Like the thunder ’mid the mountains in his ear my answer 
groans. 

Every glance falls like an arrow cutting through his guilty heart; 

Every word is like a hammer which makes bone and marrow- 
part. 

Yes! thou art a stock-blind Hebrew; for thou hast not yet 
divined, 

That for us, like Christ all glorious, rose too—Freedom of the 
Mind! 

Yes! thou art a bloody murderer! doubly curst and doubly fell,— 

Others merely murder bodies—thou dost murder souls as well! 


EXPERIENCES. 


*249 


Yes! thou art a thief, a base one, or by heaven, a fouler wight! 
Others to steal fruits do merely leap our garden fence by night; 
But thou, wretch! into the garden of the human mind hast broke, 
And with fruit, and leaf, and blossom, fell’st the tree too at a 
stroke ! 

Yes! thou art a base adulterer ! but in shame art doubly base— 
Others burn and strive for beauties that their neighbours’ 
gardens grace; 

But a crime inspired by beauty for thy grovelling soul’s too poor: 
Night and fog and vilest natures can alone thy heart allure. 

Yes! thou art a foul blasphemer! or, by heaven! a devil born! — 
Others wood and marble figures dash to pieces in their scorn ; 
But thy hand, relentless villain! strikes to dust the living frame, 
Which man’s soul, God’s holy image, quickens with its thoughts 
of flame. 

Yes! thou art an awful sinner! True, our laws yet leave thee free; 
But within thy soul in terror rack and gallows must thou see. 
Smite thy breast then in contrition, thy bowed head strew 
ashes o’er; 

Bend thy knee—make full confession,—“ Go thy way and sin 
no more!” 


Can this zealous and able champion of freedom 
have abandoned the great cause of his country ? So 
suspect, and so accuse him, the greater part of his 
followers. In the Allgemeine Zeitung of February 
13th, 1840, appeared this paragraph from a Viennese 
paper — u Anastatius Grim has been some days here 
to solicit for himself the golden key of Gentleman 
of the Bedchamber, as his wife, hereditary Coun¬ 
tess Attems, has been created Lady of the Order 
of the Starry Cross, and cannot go to court alone. 







250 


GERMAN 


It is said the Count has completely renounced the 
poet.” On this, great has been the outcry and 
indignation throughout all “ Young Germany;” and 
every radical poet has fired off at him his poetico- 
political blunderbuss. We do not, however, spite 
of all the court metamorphoses that our times have 
shewn, lightly credit the apostasy of such a spirit. 
It is more likely that the Count sees clearly that he 
has done all that he can at present do, and without 
wishing to make a useless martyr of himself, leaves 
the seed he has sown to grow and produce its 
natural fruits. 

The Cosmopolitan Watchman is a witty, as well 
as a brawny, fellow. He rambles, at first, round 
his native town, and makes observations and com¬ 
parisons, which, had he then and there given vent 
to them, would have cut his nocturnal perambu¬ 
lations very short. He sets out with this very 
comfortable soliloquy: 

The last faint twinkle now goes out 
Up in the poet’s attic; 

And the roisterers, in merry rout, 

Speed home with steps erratic. 

Soft from the house-roofs showers the snow, 

The vane creaks on the steeple, 

The lanterns wag and glimmer low 
In the storm by the hurrying people. 

The houses all stand black and still, 

The churches and taverns deserted. 

And a body may now wend at his will, 

With his own fancies diverted. 


EXPERIENCES. 



Not a squinting eye now looks this way, 

Not a slanderous mouth is dissembling, 

And a heart that has slept the livelong day 
May now love and hope with trembling. 

Dear Night! thou foe to each base end, 

While the good still a blessing prove thee, 

They say that thou art no man’s friend, 

Sweet Night! how I therefore love thee ! 

Being thus cynically inclined, the Watchman 

does not lack food for his gall. He passes the 

prison, and finds only the poor rogues there,—the 

madhouse, and thinks he knows of madder mortals, 

—the church, but it is not there that he makes his 

confessions. Here, there is a house, full of light, 

joy, and dancing; at the door freezing servants 

and starving steeds. He wonders what the fine 

folks would think of him should he suddenly enter 

with lantern, spear, and horn, and hat and cloak 

coated with snow-flakes; and asks himself whether 

lie be as actual a man as any of this gay crew. At 

the next house he perceives there is no need of 

him; another watchman stands by the door: it 

is Death! The father of the family is in his last 

•> 

agony. Another step shews him the poet aloft in 
his garret,—the bookworm, the verse-spinner, the 
thought-manufacturer, who steals about by day, 
while the knowing ones shake their heads, and call 
him by the opprobrious epithets of Bard and Poet! 
A lost child of humanity passes him. He does not 
look in her face, lest he should see some one fallen 




252 


GERMAN" 


from “ high estate.” He seats himself on a cannon 
before the castle, and bewails the fate of that old 
warrior, which once perhaps thundered victoriously 
at Austerlitz or Moscow, but now is doomed to act 
the poet-laureate and pronounce birth-day odes. 
Feeling himself something like the old cannon, 
passing his time rather lazily, he marches out at 
the city gate, and sets forth on his tour of the 
world. 

There is much bitter sarcasm in his home sketches, 
and sometimes a passing exhibition of that want of 
reverence for sacred things with which the whole 
class of Young Germany has been charged; but 
once abroad, the Watchman casts away his cloak 
and horn, is amazed at his own metamorphosis, 
and rises into the noble critic and vigorous and 
lofty poet. His Welt-gang, or World-wandering, 
is divided into seven stations, including seven of 
the principal states of Germany. The various 
moral and political characteristics of these states 
are touched off with a masterly hand. Frankfort, 
the city of Jews and diplomatists; Jews who have 
enslaved all the monarchs and states of Christendom, 
and ministers who have enslaved Germanv. He 
warns the proud city, lest the Jews one day build 
a Christian quarter, and lock up the Christians, as 
they once locked up the Jews. In Hanover he 
sees the destroyer of the constitution surrounded 
by sycophants, to whom he expresses his contempt 
of a people who can submit to fawn on the hand 


EXPERIENCES. 


253 


which filched away their rights, and a blind youth 
riding, whose horse is led by a rein attached to the 
rein of an attendant’s steed, and asks, “ Who shall 
guide the steed of government for him when the 
old man is gone?” The jealous and pitiful policy 
of the smaller princedoms is hit off in the following 
lines: 


In the royal playhouse lately 
Sate our honoured Prince sedately. 

When this amusing thing befell. 

As the paper states it well. 

Taking from his usual station 
Through his lorgnette observation, 

Straight his eagle eye did hit 
On a stranger in the pit. 

Such stranger ne’er was seen before, 

A blue-striped shirt the fellow wore; 

His neckerchief tri-coloured stuff. 

Ground for suspicion quite enough ! 

His face was red as sun at rising, 

And bore a scar of breadth surprising; 

His beard was bushy, round and short, 

Just the forbidden Hambach sort. 

Quick to the Prince’s brow there mounted 
Frowns, though he did not want them counted, 
But asked the Chamberlain quite low, 

Who is that fellow ? do you know ? 

The Chamberlain, though most observant, 
Knew not, so asked the Prince’s servant; 

The valet, to supply the want, 

Asked counsellor and adjutant. 






254 


GERMAN 


$ 


No soul could give the slightest notion,— 
The nobles all were in commotion; 

Strange whispers through the boxes ran, 
And all about the stranger man. 

“ His Highness talks of Propagand— 
Forth with the villain from the land ! 

Woe to him if he make delay 
I’ the city but another day !” 

Thus the police began exclaiming, 

With sacred zeal all over flaming. 

But soon his Highness gave the hint, 

None but himself should meddle in’t. 

One of his servants he despatches 
Down to the fellow, while he watches, 
And bids him ask him, blunt and free, 
Who, and what, and whence he be? 

After some minutes’ anxious waiting, 
Staring below, and calculating, 

With knowing, but demurest face, 

Comes back the lackey to his Grace. 

“ Your Highness!” says he in a whisper, 

“ He calls himself John Jacob Risper; 
Travels in mustard for his house !” 

“ Hush ! not a word ! to man or mouse !” 


Our Watchman escapes from these petty prince¬ 
doms, where one mighty potentate maintains an 
army of fifty men! literally, and yet has his sen¬ 
tinels marching as solemnly before his gates as the 
Czar of all the Russias himself. He escapes to 
the sea, where he breaks forth into glorious paeans 


EXPERIENCES. 


255 


on its might, majesty, and genuine greatness, that 
we fain would translate:— 

It storms ! it rages! haste, the cliff-top scale! 

Gaze through the night, blasphemer, bow thy will, 
Thine head to earth, with joy and terror pale,— 

That is the sea! look, tremble, and be still! 


So enraptured is he with the sea, that he declares 
he will pass over to free England, will marry a 
fishergirl, and live a pilot in a smoking hut on 
the coast; but his patriotism draws him, and he 
hastens on to Munich, where, like all Germans, he 
condemns what the King has done for Art, because 
he has not done it for liberty too; Berlin, where he 
lets loose his fury on the King, who is called the 
tantalizer of modern Germany. This strange mo¬ 
narch, who would fain have the reputation of a 
liberal with the reality of a despot; who voluntarily 
promises a constitution on his coronation, and then 
tells his people that they are not ready for it,—who 
establishes universal education, but takes care to 
make his schoolmasters at once policemen and slaves 
of the police,—who restores Arndt to his professor¬ 
ship because he has done all the mischief that he 
can, and expels Hoffmann von Fallersleben from his 
professorship for the very same crime of liberal 
opinion,—who fills his city with great names, but 
does not allow them to utter great truths,—who 
kneels with Mrs. Fry in Newgate, and breakfasts 
with her, a dissenter, and yet continues to compel, 







256 


GERMAN 


by his forcible compression of the Lutheran church 
into the Evangelical mould, thousands annually to 
abandon their native land,—this man, our Watch¬ 
man reminds of his promises, and tells him that 
kings should not be witty, but speak plain honest 
truths. He sees in the great city of Accomplish¬ 
ment and Tea, as he calls Berlin, but hollow 
splendour and hollow hearts; poverty and lies in 
the streets with painted cheeks; sycophants, who 
bow to the Cross, but still more deeply to the crosses 
(the Orders); he sees Tieck, and Riickert, Corne¬ 
lius, and many another great name, filling up the 
number of the motley tribe of literati and artists, 
but protests that genius cannot walk long on stilts 
and crutches; that the laurel can easily wither on 
old heads, and that only young and fresh spirits can 
pluck the fruit from the tree of the present time— 
and turns his back on the citv. 

Instead of his masterly sketches of Vienna, where 
he addresses a fine and spirited ode to Count Auers- 
perg, concluding— 

Happy thou can’st not be—ah! wherefore wert thou great? 

let us give a few stanzas as a specimen from 
the— 


DEPARTURE FROM VIENNA. 

Yes! thou art lovely, with thy rose-crowned brow, 
The bloom of passion on thy radiant face; 

When past thou fliest in the dance, as now, 

Amid youth’s eager glance and fond embrace. 


EXPERIENCES. 


257 


To sink, forgetful of the world, to rest 
Within thy arms, by thy enchantments bound, 

That might, methinks, a warrior’s steps arrest, 

And tempt e’en gods to tread this dangerous ground. 

But woman, I do fly thee!—I will not 

Kneel to thee—of thy convert throng make one;— 

Potiphar’s wife!—thy purple tempts me not— 

Let go my mantle!—for I will begone ! 

Before my vision floats a holier light; 

A chaster form, my spirit’s purest bride! 

Us life and truth and poetry unite— 

By German vows eternally allied. 

Her eye is beautiful, though less than thine ; 

It beams with peace, but thine with wild desire; 

Thy kiss is flame, but hers, if not divine, 

Is a pure, breathing, and engladdening fire. 

Thou dragg’st thy lovers down from hour to hour, 
Nearer and faster to earth’s misty face; 

She soars aloft with glorifying power, 

And bears me with her in her dear embrace. 

Her cares and sorrows never dim thy brow, 

But her proud joys thy heart can ne’er distend; 
Light, flattering one—the bliss thou dost not know 
Boldly with slaves and tyrants to contend. 

Child of the happy! thou unto the poor 
And to the captive ne’er thy tears hast given; 

Hast never mingled with earth’s contest sore 
The heart of peace and pity sent from heaven. 

Go! revel and carouse each coming morrow ! 

Strive the swift hours by violence to hold. 

But still remorse thy countenance shall furrow, 

And discontent heap wrinkles, fold on fold. 


s 







258 


GERMAN 


Pass but a night—and the rose-garlands perish — 

And down thy wizard realm of charms is hurled : 

But in eternal green the laurels flourish— 

And she—the other—is the abiding world. 

Thou knowst her not,—no, never canst thou know her!— 
Ye two can never wander hand in hand ! 

Thou canst not name her name,—hast not the power 
Her nature or her life to understand. 

Feelest thou this?—then cast thy eyelids down, 

For from the east her breath comes wafted o’er. 

Ah !—the day breaks !—thank God, the dream is flown— 
A y* Love is much, but Liberty far more ! 

Of Hoffmann yon Fallersleben’s Unpolitical 
Songs, as he calls them, it would be impossible to 
give any just idea by specimens. His two little 
volumes consist of a multitude of short snatches 
of verse, any one of which, taken singly, would 
disappoint the most moderate expectation. Of the 
actual brevity of his poems, some idea may be 
formed from the fact that in his four hundred 
pages he has upwards of nine hundred pieces. 
But if his poems are short, his words are some¬ 
times long enough, of which take a sample— 
Steuerverweigerungsverfassungsmassigberechtigt!! 
meaning a man who is exempt by the constitution 
from the payment of taxes. It is by the whole 
that Hoffmann must be judged; and yet, truly, 
when we have gone through the whole, we English¬ 
men wonder what there can be in them to frighten 
such a military monarch as the King of Prussia, 
and induce him, not only to expel the poet, a man 


EXPERIENCES. 


259 


of learning, and universally esteemed, from his post 
and livelihood, but also to forbid the admission of 
any works into his kingdom out of the shop of 
the publishers of this and such other things. It is 
true, there is a good deal of wit and epigrammatic 
smartness, but it is so fine, and so good-humoured, 
that it does not seem, by any means, very formid¬ 
able to us. Then his little innocent squibs are thrown 
out, not only against government follies, but the 
follies of his countrymen in general, and may jus¬ 
tify his title, for if not entirely unpolitical songs, 
they are by no means merely political. The Con¬ 
federation; the Zoll-Verein; the censorship; the 
passion for titles and orders; the learned pedantry 
—the affected piety of the despotic monarchs—the 
laws against the oppression of animals wdiile the 
oppression of men is practised—the modern hea¬ 
thenism, etc. etc., all have the laugh directed 
against them. We may take, perhaps, the follow¬ 
ing as fair specimens of verses quite dreadful 
where a paternal government exists and a free 
press does not:— 

ON THE WALHALLA. 

[In which the King of Bavaria has assembled the busts and 
statues of the great men of Germany, heroes, patriots, and 
reformers; Luther, and such little men, however, excepted.] 

Hail to thee, thou lofty hall, 

Of German greatness, German glory! 

Hail to you, ye heroes all. 

Of ancient and of modern story 1 








260 


GERMAN 


Oh ! ye heroes in the hall, 

Were ye but alive as once ! 

Nay, that would not do at all,— 

The king prefers you, stone and bronze! 


LAMENTATION FOR THE GOLDEN AGE. 

Would our bottles but grow deeper ! 

Did our wine but once get cheaper f 
Then on earth there might unfold 
The golden time, the age of gold. 

But not for us, we are commanded 
To go with temperance even handed. 

The golden age is for the dead ; 

We’ve got the paper age instead. 

But ah ! our bottles still decline! 

And daily dearer grows our wine! 

And flat and void our pockets fall! 

Faith ! soon there ’ll be no times at all! 


In this, one of his larger efforts, he sums up 
mass of national follies:— 

GERMAN NATIONAL WEALTH. 

Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! 

We’re off unto America ! 

What shall we take to our new land ? 

Ail sorts of things from every hand ! 

Confederation protocols; 

Heaps of tax and budget rolls; 

A whole ship-load of skins to fill 
With proclamations just at will. 

Or when we to the New World come, 

The German will not feel at home! 



EXPERIENCES 


261 


Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! 

We ’re off unto America ! 

What shall we take to our new land? 

All sorts of things from every hand ! k ( 
A brave supply of corporals’ canes; 

Of livery suits a hundred wains. 

Cockades, gay caps to fill a house, and 
Armorial buttons a hundred thousand. 

Or when we to the New World come 
The German will not feel at home. 

Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! 

We’re off unto America! 

What shall we take to our new land? 

All sorts of things from every hand! 
Chamberlain’s keys, a pile of sacks; 

Books of full blood-descents in packs; 
Dog-chains and sword-chains by the ton, 

Of order ribbons bales twenty-one. 

Or when to the New World we come 
The German will not feel at home. 

Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! 

We’re off unto America! 

What shall we take to our new land ? 

All sorts of things from every hand ! 
Scullcaps, perriwigs, old-world airs ; 
Crutches, privileges, easy chairs; 

Councillors’ titles, private lists, 

Nine hundred and ninety thousand chests. 

Or when to the New World we come 
The German will not feel at home. 

Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! 

We’re off unto America! 

What shall we take to our new land? 

All sorts of things from every hand ! 







262 


GERMAN 


Receipts for tax, toll, christening, wedding, and funeral, 
Passports and wander-books great and small; 

Plenty of rules for censors’ inspections, 

And just three million police directions. 

Or when to the New World we come 
The German will not feel at home. 

Of a far different calibre and character are the 
black songs of Benedikt Dalei. Who Benedikt 
Dalei is we know not, but his songs have all the 
feeling and effect of the genuine effusions of a 
Catholic priest who has passed through the dispen¬ 
sations which he describes. He traces, or rather 
retraces, every painful position and stage in the 
life of the solitary priest who possesses a feeling 
heart. The trials, the temptations, the pangs which 
his unnatural vow and isolated existence heap upon 
him, amid the social relationships and enjoyments 
of his fellow men. The domestic circle, the happy 
group of father, mother, and merry children; the 
electric touch of youthful love which unites two 
hearts for ever; the wedding, the christening, the 
funeral, all have for him their inexpressible bitter¬ 
ness. The perplexities, the cares, the remorse, the 
madness which, spite of the power of the Church, 
of religion, and of the most ardent faith and devo¬ 
tion, have, through the singular and unparalleled 
position of the Catholic priest, made him often a 
walking death, are all sketched with a master’s 
hand, or, more properly perhaps, a sufferer’s heart. 
The poet calls loudly on prince and prelate for the 


EXPERIENCES. 


263 


abolition of that clerical oath of celibacy which has 
been to him and to thousands a burning chain, every 
link of which has its own peculiar torture. When 
we look into those horrors which, spite of all the 
secresy and the suppression which Church and 
State have been able to heap over them, have 
transpired in the poet’s own country, we do not 
wonder at the intense vehemence of his appeal. 
In one most extraordinary ode he collects all the 
terrors and griefs of his subject. It is ‘ The Song 
of Celibacy,’ which is sung by bands of the souls 
of priests as they pass in a tempest over a wild 
heath, in which each successively pours forth the 
burden of his dread experience. The chorus and 
construction of this remarkable ode remind us 
strongly of Coleridge’s War Eclogue. We shall, 
however, prefer giving a specimen or two from 
those gentler subjects, in which he mingles with 
his melancholy such sweet touches of external 
nature. 


ENVIABLE POVERTY. 

I glance into the harvest field, 

Where ’neath the shade of richest trees 
The reaper and the reaper’s wife 
Enjoy their noon-day ease. 

And in the shadow of the hedge 
I hear full many a merry sound, 
Where the stout, brimming water-jug 
From mouth to mouth goes round. 













264 


GERMAN 


About the parents, in the grass, 

Sit boys and girls of various size, 

And like the buds about the rose. 

Make glad my gazing eyes. 

See ! God himself from heaven spreads 
Their table with the freshest green, 

n 

And lovely maids, his angel band. 

Bear heaped dishes in. 

A laughing infant’s sugar lip, 

Waked by the mother’s kiss, doth deal 

To the poor parents a dessert, 

Still sweeter than their meal. 

From breast to breast, from arm to arm. 
Goes wandering round the rosy boy, 

A little circling flame of love, 

A living, general joy. 

And strengthened thus for farther toil. 
Their toil is but joy fresh begun, 

That wife—oh, what a happy wife— 

And oh, how rich is that poor man ! 


THE WALK. 

I went a walk on Sunday, 

But so lonely everywhere! 

O’er every path and upland 
Went loving pair and pair. 

I strolled through greenest corn-fields. 
All dashed with gold so deep. 

How often did I feel as though 
My very heart would weep. 



EXPERIENCES. 


266 


The heaven so softly azure, 

The sun so full of life, 

And everywhere was youth and maiden, 
Was happy man and wife. 

They watched the yellowing harvest; 

Stood where cool water starts; 

They plucked flowers for each other, 
And with them gave their hearts. 

The larks, how they singing hovered, 
And streamed gladness from above; 
How high in the listening bosoms 
Rose the flame of youthful love ! 

In the locks of the blithe youngsters 
The west wind loved to play, 

And lifted with colder finger, 

My hair, already grey. 

Ah ! I heard song and laughter, 

And it went to my heart’s core. 

Oh ! were I again in boyhood ! 

Were I free and young once more! 


The autobiography of a Catholic priest, sketched 
by Benedikt Dalei, is enough to make a heart bleed. 

The young priest hears, amid the choir of singing- 
voices, one voice which goes to his heart. He 
beholds the singer in her youthful beauty, and loves 
—she loves him. But—the vow! It has separated 
them for ever! He marries her at the altar to his 
mortal enemy. He baptizes her child. He sees 
her in her garden as he stands at his window, 
playing with a child which is not his. She comes 
to confession, and confesses her misery, and calls 







266 


GERMAN 


on him for help. What help? he himself is in 
despair. He preaches to his people of the blessings 
of domestic life, and bleeds inwardly; he buries 
the dead, and wishes that the corpse were his. He 
dreads madness or self-murder, yet, living to be 
old, draws this moving picture of— 

THE SICK PRIEST. 

In the days of misfortune, in the blank days of sickness. 

Oh ! ho^v poor was I then, how forsaken, alone ! 

Then first comprehend we the depth of our misery,— 

To be priests, yet with hearts where soft feelings have grown. 

The servants of money, the servants of fortune, 

How they grin with the masks of their fatness upon us; 

But no step is there taken by souls of compassion, 

For comfort, for rescue, when sickness lies on us. 

Oh ! then are the arms and the bosoms too absent, 

Which are softer than cushions of down round us piled; 
There is wanting the love which obeys the least whisper, 

There is absent the love both of wife and of child! 

Go, bury the wretch, ay, bury him living, 

If ever a murder be mercy, ’tis then. 

When you bury the priest whom a heart of humanity 
Has made, though most wretched—a man amongst men! 

The last and the most significant of these poets 
whom we can now mention, is Herwegh. This 
young writer last year made a sort of political 
and triumphant tour in Germany, which excited 
a strong sensation throughout the whole country, 
and the fame of which was even wafted by the 
newspapers to England. His volume marks a new 


EXPERIENCES. 


267 


epoch in the progress of political feeling in Ger¬ 
many. Perhaps he does not equal in poetic genius 
either Count Auersperg or Dingelstedt, but he 
surpasses them both in a fiery and unrestrained 
temperament. He does not stop to dally with 
imagination, to tie lovers’ knots of delicate fancies 
and rainbow hues; to scatter light and stinging 
epigrams on this or that minor folly; but he bursts 
forth hot and dauntless at once on the great evil of 
the nation, and the absurdity of its tame tolerance. 
He is a spirit of fiery zeal, and declares it frankly. 
He rejects all waiting and temporizing. It is 
enough for him that the nation is suffering and 
ought to be free; that the princes are false to their 
vows, and ought to be made to feel it. To the 
regular common-places of age— 

Thou art young, thou must not speak, 

Thou art young, we are the old; 

Let the wave’s first furv break; 

Let the fire grow somewhat cold. 

Thou art young, thy deeds are wild; 

Thou art young and unaware; 

Thou art young ; first see thou piled 
On thy head our hoary hair. 

Learn, my son, first self-denial; 

Let the flame first purge its smoke ! 

First of fetters make a trial, 

And find how useful is a yoke.— 

He replies full of youth's wisdom,— that by whose 
fervour chains are molten, and nations rescued 









-268 


GERMAN 


from the frost of custom—“ Ah, too cunning gen¬ 
tlemen ! there you paint your own portraits—pri¬ 
soners ! But you guardians of the past, who then 
shall build up the future! What is left you but 
the protection of our arms ? Who shall love your 
daughters ? Who defend your honour ? Despise 
not youth, even when it speaks the loudest. Alas ! 
how often has your caution, your virtue, sinned 
against humanity ? ” 

This burst of zeal, which has been echoed by 
a shout of many thousand voices from every 
quarter of Germany, betrays, as we have said, a 
new epoch; tells that the leaven has leavened a 
very considerable portion of the popular mass. 
The young, at least, are grown weary of promises 
never fulfilled, and waiting that leads to nothing. 
The doctrines of the earlier school are renounced 
as false and delusive. Count Auersperg exclaimed : 

Shall the sword then be our weapon ? No, the Word, the 
light, the will! 

For the joyful, peaceful conqueror, is the proudest conqueror 
still ! 

And every succeeding political bard prolonged the 
cry—“ The Word is omnipotent!” But this is the 
cry no longer. It is not the Word, but the Sword! 
The Word, say they, has deceived; the Sw r ord 
must hew a way to freedom. This is the war-cry 
with which Herwegh broke forth, and to which 
came a host of jubilant echoes:— 


EXPERIENCES. 


269 


Oh ! all whose hands a hilt can span, 

Pray for a trusty sword! 

Pray for a hero, for a man 

Armed with the wrath of God. 

One contest there is yet in store, 

With glorious victory rife; 

The earth has yet one conflict more, 

The last, the sacred strife. 

Hither, ye nations! hither flow, 

Around your standard hie! 

For Freedom is our general now, 

And forward! is our cry. 

The true creed is, according to him, no longer 
Love and Patience, but Hate! Hate is the true 
patriotism, the true saving faith. 

THE HYMN OF HATE. 

Forth ! forth ! out over hill and dale, 

The morning dawn to meet; 

Bid the faithful wife farewell, 

Your faithful weapons greet; 

Until our hands in ashes fall, 

The sword shall be their mate; 

We’ve loved too long; come one and all, 

And let us soundly hate ! 

Love cannot save us, cannot shake 
The torpor from our veins; 

Hate ! let thy day of judgment break, 

And break our hated chains ! 

And wheresoe’er are tyrants found, 

Destruction be their fate; 

Too long has love our spirits bound, 

Now let us soundly hate ! 








270 


GERMAN 


Wherever yet there beats a heart, 

Hate be its sole desire; 

Dry wood stands everywhere to start ! 

Into a glorious fire. 

Ye with whom Freedom yet remains, 

Sing through our streets elate ; 

Burst ye love’s thraldom-forging chains, 

And learn at length to hate ! 

Give quenchless battle and debate 
On earth to Tyranny, 

And holier shall be our hate 
Than any love can be. 

Until our hands in ashes fall, 

The sword shall be their mate; 

We’ve loved too long; come one and all. 

And let us soundly hate! 

And the accordant prayer is: — 

Rush forth, O God! with tempest-scattering breath 
Through the terrific calm ! 

Give us stern Freedom’s tragedy of death 
For Slavery’s lulling psalm. 

In the world’s frozen breast, no more a stranger, 

Let a heart beat aloud. 

Send her, O Lord, a terrible avenger ! 

A hero strong and proud ! 

Let us once more drink eagerly and deep 
From thy communion cup; 

Build us an altar on some awful steep 
Ourselves to offer up. 

Spread us a battle-field, where tyrant hordes 
May with free nations fight, 

For from their sheaths, their prisons, our keen swords 
Long to leap forth in light. 


EXPERIENCES. 


271 


And the counsel is ‘ A call to Arms’:— 

Tear the crosses from their station ! 

Make them swords for our salvation ! 

God in heaven forgives the zeal. 

Leave, oh ! leave this idle rhyming, 

On the anvil loudly chiming, 

Strike redemption from the steel! 

But enough of this blood-breathing clangour, of 
these war trumpets, of which we have introduced 
only just such fragmental notes as were necessary 
for the faithful illustration of our subject. Fain 
would we see nations abandoning the hope of the 
sword, and learning to trust in the moral power of 
truth and of advancing knowledge. Yet when we 
see how completely a great and intellectual nation 
has been caught in the subtle net of policy, how 
princes have learned to despise their promises, and 
how the moral stamina of the people has been 
undermined by dependence on office, and by the 
fear of police, w r e do not wonder, we can only 
deplore. The youth of Germany see all this. They 
see how deeply the poison of government coercion 
and suppression of free opinion has penetrated into 
the moral nature of the public; what sequacity, 
what subserviency, what prostration of all that is 
great, and daring, and generous, it has infused into 
the social and intellectual frame; how infidelity in 
religion has followed in the train of that philosophy 
to which the German mind has turned as to its 
only free region of speculation; and they have no 








272 


GERMAN 


hope but in the sword. In any moral power their 
faith is shaken. They doubt its very existence in 
the public mind. They hope nothing from the 
free concession of the Princes; they hope as little 
from the vast mass of their dependents,—that is, of 
half the nation lulled in a Circean slumber of 
official comfort, but they know that breach of faith 
and defrauded hopes have spread a wide substratum 
of discontent; that the great powers of Prussia and 
Austria are powers made up of the most hetero¬ 
geneous fragments, and they hope that a spark of 
warlike fire breaking out some day in some one 
quarter—they care not where—may raise a general 
flame, and national liberty soar out of the confla¬ 
gration. How far this hope may be realized, we 
leave Time to decide. Meanwhile, on the one 
hand, the governments stand strong on the system 
which we have described; and, on the other, the 
triumphant career of Herwegh, and the sale of 
five editions of his volume in less than two years, 
prove that the spirit of popular liberty is making 
rapid strides. Even the King of Prussia, with his 
affectation of liberality, thought fit to give Herwegh 
an audience while he was in Berlin, though, with 
his usual inconsistency, he afterwards ordered him 
to quit the city. Other Princes, following his 
example, raised the consequence of the young poet,, 
by warning him out of their territories, and he 
returned to his Swiss stronghold; where, however, 
he sate himself down in additional strength and 


EXPERIENCES. 


273 


comfort, having won a rich wife while in the Prus¬ 
sian capital. The success of his poems, the lire of 
their contagious spirit, and, above all, the eclat of 
his tour, have, as might be expected, given birth to 
fresh young poets and fresh issues of songs, which, 
however, have not yet acquired sufficient import¬ 
ance to be included in this group. 


I 


T 










274 


GERMAN 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE. 


Since the chapter on the Political Poets was pub¬ 
lished in the Athenaeum, the King of Prussia has 
issued an order to arrrest Herwegh, wherever and 
whenever he can be found on the Prussian terri¬ 
tory. This monarch seems now to have flung off 
the last hypocritical pretence of liberal sentiment. 
Every day he is doing some act of defiance to his 
people, and of despite to their prayers for the 
promised boon of constitutional liberty.* For 
what was this man received with such enthusiasm 
in England? For what did the people run after 
him, and shout, as well as the nobility fete him? 
For what did Mrs. Fry invite him to breakfast? 
Was it for any congenial expression of sentiment— 
for any deeds of liberality done either in politics 

* In a letter just received from one of the most celebrated 
and, I may add, moderate men of Germany, dated April 13th, 
I find this sentence :—“ Seit Sie Deutschland verlassen haben, 
ist es schlimmer und schlimmer bei uns geworden, namentlich 
1 in Preussen. Die Presse wird mehr und mehr gedriickt, jede 
freiere Regung desVolksbewnsstseins wisd mit Fiissen getreten: 
der Kdnig hat durch die jiingsten Landtagsabschiede klar 
bewiesen, dasser nicht mehr und nicht weniger, alseben ein 
absoluter Herrscher sein will.” 




EXPERIENCES. 


*275 


or religion? or was it really because lie has, more 
than, perhaps, any man of his time, wilfully, un- 
solicitedly, made promises of good that he never 
meant to fulfil, and assumed pretences that were 
intended only to bamboozle and insult his people? 
Did Mrs. Fry, when she gave this man of her 
toast and tea, her prayers and benedictions, think 
of asking him the simple question—Why he had 
continued to enforce the religious compulsion of 
his father, which has driven 5000 poor Lutherans 
into exile from their native land, and still continues 
to drive them thence? Did the Queen, or did the 
Lord Mayor, when they feted and flattered this 
man, ever think of asking him why he has pro¬ 
mised freedom to his people, and every day more 
sternly denies their prayers for that freedom,— 
nay, more, remorselessly lops away what little of 
freedom they have? It is said that her Majesty 
contemplates a visit to Berlin, to this wretched 
dissembler, where she is to meet also the Czar of 
Russia. She might surely keep better company. 
No one can expect her to return from such society 
with a more liberal and truly English mind. 

Here is a man who does not, like many mo- 
narchs, sin against his people because he is ignorant 
of them, of their real feelings and condition. No; 
he is better acquainted with all that concerns his 
people than any monarch in Europe. In his youth 
he was a wild fellow; he roamed amongst his 
people, he descended into the very lowest of their 

t 2 









276 


GERMAN 


haunts for the gratification of his roving pleasures. 
But when he comes to the throne, at a mature age, 
he puts on a face of piety, and promises his people 
unasked, on his coronation, a free representative 
constitution. In vain, however, have they looked 
for it. What has been his reply? “ I mean to 
give it you, when you are really prepared for it!” 
As the Cosmopolitan Watchman says, “Kings 
should not be witty, but speak plain truths.” He 
should have freely given his explanation when he 
gave the promise, and there would have been no 
mistake. But here now is this man in close alliance 
with the Russian Autocrat, w r ho hates all liberty. 
Here he sends his troops, when this Czar fears 
insurrection amongst his own people, to help to 
keep them, down. Every day Prussian subjects, on 
pretence of being Russian fugitives, are seized on 
the Russian frontiers, and dragged away into Rus¬ 
sian slavery; and spite of the outcries of his own 
people for help and protection, this liberal king 
takes no notice of these outrages. No; he is too 
busy in quenching the remaining sparks of liberty 
amongst his people himself. He issues an order 
to seize a poor poet, who is none of his subject, if 
he can be at any time found on Prussian soil. His 
Rhenish provinces have, by the act which made 
them over to Prussia after the war, a right, in their 
Landtag, or Parliament, to propose measures of 
amendment to him. This very year, but a few 
months ago, they exercised this right, and proposed 


EXPERIENCES. 


277 


eight-and-forty measures of improvement, including 
the adoption of trial by jury. Of these he flings 
back forty, and that with harsh reproaches, telling 
them that “ he is called upon to diffuse a German 
and not a French sentiment,” i.e. not trial by jury, 
and such things. The lawyers of Germany have 
united themselves into a society for the considera¬ 
tion of the revision of the whole legal system of 
Germany, of that horrible system without publicity, 
juries, or oral evidence. They meet at Mayence, 
but the King of Prussia forbids any of his sub¬ 
jects to appear there! Nay, he makes war on the 
very pastimes of the people. In their carnivals 
they have been accustomed to express, in jokes 
and witticisms, their political privations,—he has 
therefore this year forbidden those carnival frolics 
at Diisseldorf! The Hegelians petition to be 
allowed to publish a literary journal, for the dif¬ 
fusion of their philosophical opinions,—it is for¬ 
bidden ! Thus this man, who so freely at his 
Huldigung promised freedom of press and con¬ 
stitution, now trembles alike at philosopher and 
Hans Wurst. Every week witnesses some new 
and arbitrary attack on the liberties of his sub¬ 
jects. 

Ferdinand Freiligrath, a beautiful and very popu¬ 
lar lyric poet, but very temperate in his assertion 
of his ideas of political liberty, he gave a paltry 
pension to of some two or three hundred dollars, 
no doubt in the hope of keeping him silent; but 






•278 


GERM A V 


such is the excessive jealousy of this tyrant of the 
slightest whisper of honest opinion, that even Frei- 
liofrath has fallen under the strictures of the censor; 
and also the editor of the Cologne Gazette , for pub¬ 
lishing his poem on the new year, in which an 
Englishman would not find a line strong enough 
to alarm a royal mouse. 

Doctor Nauwerk, a popular professor in Berlin, 
has lately dared to utter some recommendations 
of trial by jury, as well as other constitutional 
institutions, from his chair, on which he was warned 
by the Prussian minister to desist, but Nauwerk 
spiritedly declared that if he were not at liberty to 
expound what appeared to him just principles of 
law and statesmanship, he would throw up his pro¬ 
fessorship. As this was not allowed, he has done 
so, and published an explanation of his conduct, 
denying the charge of the minister, “ that he endea¬ 
voured to allure students* by such remarks, with 
the very significant observation, “ that if liberty 
had more charms than despotism for the young, 
that was not his fault, but the fault of the thing 
itself,—it had been the case for thousands of years.” 
He has declared that he will retire to Paris, and 
join the able phalanx of the German Reformers 
who have fled thither, and thence assist to send the 
spirit of freedom into their native land. It appears 
that many of these patriots, as Ruge, Echtermeyer, 
Vatke, Prutz, Herwegh, and others, have purposely 
married women of property, to enable them to act 


EXPERIENCES. 279 

independently against the overgrowing pressure of 
royal despotism in Germany. 

The example of the King of Prussia has embol¬ 
dened the rulers in all other parts of the country 
to similar proceedings, and the civil prosecutions 
of Jordan, Bauer, and many others, into which we 
cannot here enter, shew that no man who dares 
to utter the most moderate sentiment for the politi¬ 
cal or social improvement of his country is safe 
from utter ruin. But a recent event has placed 
this in a most remarkable light. The brothers 
Grimm, well known in this country by their collec¬ 
tion of nursery tales (Kinder und Haus-Marchen), 
who were on their banishment from Hanover re¬ 
ceived by the King of Prussia, and made professors 
in Berlin, had, on their birth-day, lately, a torch- 
train in honour of them brought by the students. 
Amongst the guests of the Grimms happened to 
be their old friend the proscribed Hoffmann von 
Fallersleben. To him the students gave a vivat! 
This was so dire an offence to the wretched king, 
that he immediately ordered Hoffmann to quit the 
citv, and ordered the arrest of a number of the 
students. These young men were “ religirt,” that 
is, banished from the University, and by the Allge- 
meine Zeitung, we learn that they were conveyed 
immediately from the university prison in carriages 
to their own places of abode. This proceeding 
is total and irrevocable ruin to every one of these 
young men . They cannot be inscribed as students 






280 


GERMAN 


in any university of Germany. They cannot, con¬ 
sequently, take any degree, or be employed by any 
government. A more cruel and savage vengeance 
for the slight imprudence, to say the worst of it, 
of giving a vivat to an esteemed patriot, cannot 
be concei ved. Probably the parents of these young 
men have strained every nerve, and put themselves 
to great hardships, to give their sons such an edu¬ 
cation as alone in that country can open the way to 
an honourable establishment; and thus it is, for a 
momentary outburst of youthful enthusiasm for 
freedom and its advocates, dashed from their hopes. 
But this is not all. The Grimms, trembling lest it 
should bring ruin also upon them, have published 
an explanation which betrays their excessive fear; 
and in which they insinuate that any continuance 
of demonstrations of free opinion will destroy the 
university altogether. Nothing can give us a 
more striking idea of the feeling in Berlin of the 
spirit of the king in regard to despotism: and what 
a condition is that of the learned men of that city ! 
Not a man dare speak, or hardly look, freely, lest 
as the Allgemeine Zeitung says, “ruin sit on his 
heels.” 

This celebrated journal, which is as distinguished 
for its sound discretion and temperate tone, as 
for its real attachment to genuine constitutional 
liberty, in this instance speaks out nobly. It says 
that the Grimms have failed greatly in parts of 
their explanation,—that they do not comprehend 


EXPERIENCE?. 


281 


how anxiously the public look to their learned and 
distinguished men for a public expression of their 
real opinions. “ The German learned men,” con¬ 
tinues it, “ hang their opinions like a holiday 
suit in their wardrobes—only to be put on upon 
particular occasions. But our opinions,” says it, 
“ should be our daily clothing — our cloak, our 
coat, our dressing-gown, and our shirt. We 
should work in them, walk in them, lie in them, 
think and act in them, and therein die and be 
buried.” 

This spirit will not stop here: but, in the mean 
time, what do we Englishmen think of ourselves 
for having run after this despicable tyrant, when 
here, as after some great patriot and friend of the 
human race? We are told that the Emperor of 
Russia is about to pay our Queen a visit. Let 
us this time learn to conduct ourselves as the 
greatest and most free people on the earth. Let 
the Queen and public authorities receive the Czar 
as befits a powerful monarch who is at peace with 
us, but let not the people of England run after and 
applaud him as if he were not a true despot but 
a patriot, or as if we were slaves and lovers of 
slavery, instead of being, as we are, the proud 
champions and guardians of the liberties of the 
world. 

And what is that (i German sentiment” which the 
King of Prussia says he is called upon to maintain ? 
So far as can be drawn from the whole history of Ger- 







282 


GERMAN 


many, it is on the part of the Princes, not to defend 
their subjects from the inroads of the French, but 
meanly and dastardly at home to crush every free 
aspiration. Look back for five centuries, and this is 
the constant aspect of things. At the Reformation, 
the Protestant Princes, who could have crushed 
by union and prompt action Charles V. in a fort¬ 
night before he had his troops collected, timidly 
suffered the golden opportunity to pass, spite of all 
the prayers and exertions of the brave General 
Schartlin, and were soon compelled to kneel as 
captives at the feet of the poor gouty monarch 
whom they might have commanded, and thus 
crippled the Reformation in Germany for ever. 
When Louis XIV. made his audacious attempts 
on Germany, they never took the least pains to 
fortify their frontiers, or to combine heartily to 
resist him. They suffered Turenne to lay the whole 
of the beautiful Pfalz in ashes, utterly to ruin and 
burn down the towns, and transplant the inhabitants 
to France. Each sordid Prince only looked to 
make some wretched bargain for himself, at the 
expense of the rest. It was just the case again in 
the days of Napoleon. When the French were in 
the heart of Wiirtemberg, these Princes met at 
Regensburg, and instead of consulting how they 
should most effectually expel the enemy, they spent 
their time in disputing whether they should hold 
their deliberations at a long or a round table, so as to 
get rid of their eternal plague of precedence. They 


EXPERIENCES. 


283 


never agreed on anything, but to get as much 
through Napoleon, from one another, as they could. 
They fought for him, and against each other. 
When his son was born, they sent off delegates 
from all parts of Germany to Paris, who made the 
most fulsome harangues of congratulation over 
“The young Heir of the World.” The moment 
that Napoleon, their benefactor, was overthrown in 
Russia, they all rose and cried “Thief! thief! after 
him, calling on the people to restore the Empire. 
The people rose and drove out the one tyrant, only, 
as they found, to establish a score. These German 
Princes, who thus made, necessarily, tools of Napo¬ 
leon, and of their own subjects, merely to enable 
them to trample on the ancient free constitution of 
their country, of which they were not heads, but 
merely officers,—certainly present, at the present 
moment, the most revolting spectacle of a set of 
perjured and perfidious characters in all history, 
and that before all Europe. Their utter disregard 
of all faith in many of their transactions are 
astounding. A late Duke, over whom, at his 
death, so many eulogiums were uttered in this 
country as so virtuous a prince, was universally 
known in Germany by the title of the Falsch- 
munzer,—that is, the coiner of false money,— 
because, to pay his debts, he coined a mass of 
bad money, and then issued an order that what 
was paid away out of the country should never 
come in again, and what remained in it should 











284 


GERMAN 


never be taken again by government. Many of 
his own officers are said to have suffered severely 
by this act, having considerable quantities in their 
hands. Much of this money is still in existence 
in the other states, and is paid amongst the coin to 
strangers. When you offer to pay it away again 
they say, “ Oh, that is a Coburger!—it is good for 
nothing!” To what traveller in Germany has not 
this occurred? It did to me, many a time, till I 
began to know the face of a Coburger. 

As we have already said, they have bound Ger¬ 
many hand and foot, converting their Bund, or 
Confederation, into the most fearful engine of des 
potism—a Confederation of Princes, not only against 
their foreign enemies, but against their own subjects. 
This they shewed when the people of Hanover 
appealed to them against their tyrant, and the 
arbitrary destruction of their constitution. This 
is shewn by their conduct to the present reigning 
Duke of Brunswick. The people of Brunswick 
rose up against their ruler, for his reckless waste of 
the public money and contempt of the constitution, 
threatening even to turn his cannon upon them. 
For this they stormed and burnt his palace over 
his head on the 7th of September 1830; pelted 
him and a favourite actress in his carriage with 
stones, and would probably have torn him to pieces 
but for his coachman, who flogged on furiously his 
horses.* 

* Menzel’s History of Germany, p. 10]5. 


EXPERIENCES. 


285 


They elected a new ruler, his brother Wilhelm. 
But the Princes of the Bund, though they did not 
dare to force the people of Brunswick, would not 
recognise as hereditary the proper ruler of their 
choice. And what was more, none of the monarchs 
of Europe would recognise him. The consequence 
is, that the expelled Duke lives here amongst us, 
recognised by all the crowned heads of Europe as 
the rightful Duke of Brunswick; and the reigning 
Duke—the choice of the people, it is confidently 
asserted in Germany, cannot marry, for no royal 
house will give him a wife. Thus has legitimacy 
found a plan to ensure the reign of its members, 
spite of the will of a nation, however that nation 
may be oppressed; and what is singular, the 
monarchs of France and England have thus politi¬ 
cally recognised a doctrine which virtually makes 
them both usurpers, and gives the true claim of 
regency to the Stuarts and the elder Bourbons. 

Under such circumstances, we may reasonably 
look for the political condition of Germany, woful 
as it is, daily becoming worse, and may feel assured 
that the day of real enfranchisement is very far 
off—except!—what is very likely, a spark from the 
outbursting flame of liberty in France or England 
one dav set it in sudden flame. 

Politicians in most countries are too apt to fix 
their gaze with an intense exclusiveness on the 
movements of their own land, and therefore do not 
see the true signs of the times. But those who are 









•286 


GERMAN 


accustomed, to cast a glance over the proceedings 
of the whole of Europe, cannot avoid seeing that 
the same causes are everywhere operating, and are 
steadily urging onward a day, perhaps not far 
distant—when some circumstance, perhaps not to 
be discerned by the keenest eye till it actually 
arrives, will put as it were the match to the train, 
and revolution will run like wildfire from court to 
court of Europe. Let us look a little at these 
causes. 

The remarkable feature of the whole of Europe 
is this:—everywhere the mass of the people is daily 
advancing in a knowledge of its rights, and a 
sense of its wrongs; and everywhere, the kings 
and governments, with a selfish blindness which 
amounts to infatuation—instead of prudently con¬ 
ceding gradually to the spirit of the times—are 
obstinately resisting it, and drawing tighter the 
reins of arbitrary power. It seems as if Provi¬ 
dence had designed that the despotic principle, 
whether existing in princes or aristocracies, should, 
in the very noon-day of knowledge, do such despite 
to popular right, as should render despotism irre¬ 
coverably odious, and put the fiat of self-destruction 
upon it for ever. 

I have in this volume shewn how indefatigably 
and determinedly the German governments have 
tied up the people, hand and foot; but these are not 
the only causes of danger to the German govern¬ 
ments. The German larger states are composed 


I 


EXPERIENCES. *287 

of such a mass of heterogeneous materials—they 
are put together out of such a number of disjointed 
and discordant pieces, that the seeds, and more 
than the seeds, of endless discontents and dangers 
lie in them. 

Prussia is a perfect conglomeration of territories 
snatched from its neighbours, in war. Besides 
the states forcibly seized by Frederick the Great, 
including Silesia, it had its share of the mutilated 
members of Poland; and when the Allied Sovereigns 
parceled out Germany amongst them, when they 
had got rid of Buonaparte, by a strange act of 
policy it was allowed to rend away and appropriate 
half of Saxony. No doubt this extraordinary 
sharing of Saxony for the aggrandisment of Prus¬ 
sia—a measure as detrimental to the smaller states 
of Germany, and true German interests, as it was 
mischievous to Austria—for Saxony, in its inte¬ 
grity, was a bulwark at once against Russia and 
against the growing power and influence of Prussia, 
—was supported and carried through by Russia. As 
it is, it only apparently strengthens Prussia, but in 
reality renders her weaker and more vulnerable. 
Saxony cannot avoid looking on Prussia with an 
eye vigilant in remembrance of this gross wrong, 
and the Saxo-Prussian provinces have still a natural 
yearning towards their old relations. Let but an 
occasion present itself, and Prussia would see its 
Saxon, its Polish, its Silesian provinces, falling 
as many ways from it, and into the arms of as 







288 


GERMAN 


many enemies. The Rhine provinces have equally 
their causes of dissatisfaction with their arbitrary 
allocation, and the rejection of all liberal reform 
by the present monarch. 

Austria, again, is such another combination of 
essentially distinct elements. Austria Proper, 
Hungary, Bohemia, the Italian States, what a 
discordant conjunction of people and interests, 
which are alone held together by the present state 
of European politics. Bohemia has its discontents; 
Hungary is in an internal ferment; the native 
Hungarians have their own constitution and their 
Landtag,—and keen is the spirit of freedom that 
burns in the bosoms of the Magyar tribes, and dis¬ 
tinguishes the debates of their Landtag. Sieben- 
biirgen, again, that is, Transylvania, is the very 
Ireland of Austria. The predominant inhabitants 
are Wallachians, yet, as in Ireland, these are thrust 
sternly away from all offices, which are tilled by 
the Austrians and other Germans, or Saxons, as 
they are called, being descended from an ancient 
Saxon colony. By a memorial presented to the 
Siebenburgen Landtag by the Wallachian bishops, 
Johan Lemeny and Basil Moya, printed at length 
in the Allgemeine Zeitung of March the 8th and 9th, 
we learn that the Wallachians were guaranteed 
their own constitutional rights and freedom by 
Austria on its union, as those of Ireland were to 
its people by the Treaty of Limerick, but that these 
rights and liberties have been just as contemp- 


EXPERIENCES. 


289 


tuously trodden under foot. All offices and autho¬ 
rities are invested in the Germans; the funds for 
education are expended on the Germans, and care¬ 
fully withheld from the Wallachians; the creed is 
anxiously regarded in the choice of representatives 
to the Landtag—the Catholic Austrians, or Lu¬ 
theran Germans being taken, and the Greek Wal- 
lachian excluded. The portions of land awarded 
to young people on marriage, out of the national 
mass, are given only to Germans, not to the Wal¬ 
lachians; and all the claims of equal benefit and 
exercise of laws and rights are as constantly disre¬ 
garded. Every township has a treasure-chest, out 
of which money may be lent to assist the young 
and striving, but the contents of these chests are 
regularly monopolized by the Germans. The 
clergy of both religions, as well as the singers, 
sacristans, vergers, and other officers of the church 
are allowed certain proportions of land, with the 
use of mills, etc.; but these are all given to the 
German clergy, and the Hungarian and Wallachian, 
who are chiefly of the Greek church, are left to 
starve, or be barely maintained by their impover¬ 
ished hearers. By the articles of union Germans 
and Siebenbiirgens were equally to be drawn for 
the army, but the Siebenbiirgens are drawn alone. 
During the war the township chests, which contained 
the title-deeds of these townships, were plundered 
and the deeds destroyed; and knowing this, the 
Germans, by force of arms, have possessed them- 

u 







•290 


GERMAN 


selves of the greatest part of the landed estates, and 
defy the real owners to regain them. In short, the 
unhappy natives, like the Irish, are thrust by the 
powerful usurpers, out of law, office, and property, 
both temporal and ecclesiastical. They are made 
poor, and kept ignorant,—in a word, there never 
were countries which stood so exactly in the same 
relations to each other as England and Ireland,— 
Austria and Siebenbiirgen. But these materials of 
discontent and future disruption, are not confined 
to Prussia, Saxony, and Austria. It is not merely 
Hungary, Saxony, Poland, and the indignant 
Italian States that are looking forward to the sure 
coming time for vengeance and redress, but the 
same mischief is spread over all Germany. Holstein 
is torn violently from the Germanic body, and 
made over to Denmark—which it heartily detests. 
Brunswick has chased away its tyrants, but is 
refused acknowledgment of its chosen head. Ha¬ 
nover groans bitterly over its ravished constitution. 
The Rhine provinces, which should have been 
formed into one large and noble state, as a brave 
bulwark against the aggressive spirit of France, 
were cut into fragments and appended to Prussia, 
Hesse, Bavaria, etc., and why? Because they had 
been under the sway of France, and had acquired 
French institutions of sufficient freedom to alarm 
the searching eye of Metternich. These united into 
a great and liberal whole, lying alongside of libe¬ 
rally disposed Baden and Alsace, would have been 


EXPERIENCES. 


291 


a terrible bugbear to the despotic spirits of Prussia 
and Austria. For this reason Alsace was even cut 
loose altogether from the German nation, and made 
over a free-will offering to France ! The German 
monarchs, at the peace of 1815, had the power in 
their own hands, and could have again brought the 
pleasant Alsace into its ancient circle of Germanity. 
But the subtle Metternich dreaded the quick liberal 
leaven which had become active in Alsace, and had 
rather ten times that it was flung to the ancient 
enemy and desolator of Germany, than be included 
as a too-active member in the Allemannic Body. 

For the same reason Baden, which belonged 
of right to the House of Bavaria, was carefully 
separated by this far-seeing and Arch-Master of 
Machiavelian policy. Bavaria and Baden one 
powerful realm, and the great and liberalized 
Rhine States in juxta-position, what an unwelcome 
counterbalance would there have been in South 
Germany to the freezing influence of Austria and 
Prussia! If all the threats and the influence of 
these persons have not been able to put down the 
daring spirit of the Representative Chamber of 
little Baden, which in its loud and incessant 
demand of its constitutional rights has set a noble 
example to the rest of Germany, what would they 
have availed against so great a combination of 
freedom-asserting states ? 

Such is the state of Germany,—held, as I have 
shown, bound hand and foot in the most intricate 






29*2 


GERMAN 


and jealous bonds of political slavery by tyrants 
who, from the arbitrary and unnatural dragging 
together of the materials of their realms, are setting 
themselves on so many barrels of gunpowder. So 
long as they can maintain peace, they may maintain 
their own ascendency over a deceived and yet too- 
pliant people; but let war once burst out anywhere 
in Europe, and their whole artificial police will go 
to pieces like an avalanche, that wants but smiting 
with one flash of sunshine, and it will descend in 
thunder from its place. The elements of an active 
effervescence are, as we have seen, widely at work 
within their borders; but if the mischief does not, 
as it probably will not, burst forth from within, we 
have only to look without, to assure ourselves that 
peril is at hand. Here is France, revolutionary 
France, constantly striving towards a condition of 
republican freedom, yet so checked and restrained 
bv the king of their own choice, the king, not of 
k ranee, but of the French, that, says the Reforme , 
(l there are at this moment in France, this ancient 
land of liberty, twenty-seven editors of newspapers 
confined in prison. Since 1830, journalism has 
paid 7,500,000 francs in fines, and incurred judg¬ 
ments amounting to imprisonment for one hundred 
and eighty-four years and ten months.'” 

Such is the liberty of the press in France. The 
French smart under two recollections—the loss of 
their internal liberty, and that of their military 
renown.—Waterloo and King Louis Philippe lie 


EXPERIENCES. 


29.*3 


both heavily upon them; and the decease of that 
monarch will most probably see them rise once 
more in irresistible excitement, and not only fill 
France with their effervescence, but overflow into 
Germany. Then will the German princes be 
compelled to put themselves on the defensive, and 
will find that they have still more enemies in their 
rear than their front, in their own camp than in 
that of France. Thousands and tens of thousands 
in Germany long for such a crisis as that of national 
rescue. They regard the German inonarchs as 
kept in peace only by their salutary fears. When 
the French assisted the Belgians to throw off the 
yoke of Holland, and stormed Antwerp—the Ger¬ 
man Bund protested against it, yet lay perfectly 
still. Thiers menaced the Bhine country, and 
though the German princes talked loud, and held 
great reviews, they did not march a foot towards 
the frontiers. That, said their advocates, was be¬ 
cause they are peaceably disposed: to which their 
enemies add, Yes, and wisely, for war to them, they 
well know, must be a double game,—they must at 
once encounter foreign and domestic foes. 

But England, as well as France and Germany, 
is in the steady progress of political effervescence. 
Every day the people are growing more sensible 
of both their rights and wrongs, and more cla¬ 
morous for redress; while their government, like 
those of France and Germany, is daily meeting 
the demand by a closer and more determined coer- 






294 


GERMAN 


cion. In all the great nations of Europe the same 
contest is going on between the principles of des¬ 
potism and of popular freedom. Every where the 
rulers seem dead to the signs of the times, seem 
designed by Providence to bring arbitrary power 
into the full measure of its deserved odium, by 
shewing how blind and unrelenting it is, the more 
the people’s eyes and minds become opened to 
observe it. It seems designed that the people of 
all Europe shall be taught impressively that none 
but a popular government, one, the reins of which 
the people themselves really hold, will ever rule for 
the people, consult their just wishes, and govern 
really for the sake of the general good. Vast 
armies and vast bodies of police, at present, hold 
all still: but let one single peg in the great European 
machine give way, let the King of the French die, 
let a bad harvest occur in England, and we may 
one day go to bed in peace and awake in revolution. 
But wherever the spark of explosion falls, it matters 
little—the train stretches throughout all Europe, 
the materials of combustion are thickly strewn 
every where, and the change will go like wild-fire 
throughout the civilised world. If we call to mind 
what was the universal effect in all European coun¬ 
tries of the French Revolution of 1830, we may 
form some faint idea of what the next electric 
shock will produce. For the horrors which will 
arise those governments will be accountable, which 
with a mad infatuation have resisted all timely 


EXPERIENCES. 


295 


warnings, and made no concessions to the spirit of 
the age; the good which may arise out of the ruin, 
the people will owe to their own prudence and 
temperance, if they are happy enough to preserve 
those divine qualities. That will be the time which 
will put to the proof how far real political wisdom 
and practical philosophy have advanced, not only 
in Germany, but amongst ourselves. 


As this sheet goes to press, a number of German 
newspapers coming to hand, enable me to give a 
striking example of the politically insane condition 
of the Ki rig of Prussia. I have alluded to the case 
of Ferdinand Freiligrath. Here is one of the poems 
which alarmed Prussia, with its half million of 
soldiers. To decide whether this poem might see 
the light unmutilated, the High Court of Chief 
Censorship held its sitting in Berlin, on the 13th 
of February, in which no less grave and dignified 
personages than the Actual Privy Upper Coun¬ 
sellor of Justice and Secretary of State, the Pre¬ 
sident Bornemann, and the members, Privy Upper 
Counsellor of Justice Zettwaeh, Privy Upper 
Counsellor of Justice Goeschel, Privy Upper 
Tribunal’s Counsellor Ulrich, Privv Government’s 
Counsellor Aulicke, Actual Counsellor of Legation 
Graf von Schlieffen, Professor von Lanciolle, and 
Privy Finance Counsellor von Obstfelder, sate in 





296 


GERMAN 


deep deliberation,—on what? to consider whether 
this poem might, without danger to the realm, be 
published entire; and decided that it could not, 
without the omission of the two lines here given 
in italics. The poem, of course, appeared without 
the lines in Prussia, but was immediately published 
with them in Hamburg. It must be amusing to 
Englishmen to see out of what trifles tyrants create 
the bugbears that break their rest; and what a 
lunatic the King of Prussia has become, attempt¬ 
ing to shut out of his kingdom that light which 
immediately bursts in from all sides,—from Ham¬ 
burg, Switzerland, France, and England. The 
unfortunate man should abandon the eagle as the 
symbol of Prussia, and adopt that of the ostrich 
sticking its head in the ground. The forbidden 
lines were pronounced a libel on the King’s brother- 
in-law, the Czar of Russia,—the Steppengeier, or 
Tartar Eagle. 

ON MANHOOD’S TREE SPRINGS CROWDING 
FLOWER ON FLOWER. 

On manhood’s tree springs crowding flower on flower; 

By an eternal law they wave thereon. 

As here one withereth in its final hour, 

There springs another full and glorious one. 

An ever coming and an ever going— 

And never for one hour a sluggish standi 

We see them burst,—to earth then see them blowing 

And every blossom is a Folk—a Land ! 


EXPERIENCES. 


297 


We who yet wander with young feet this wo-land. 
Already have seen many crushed and dying; 

The Tartar eagle tore the Rose of Poland 
Before oar eyes, and grimly left it lying . 

Through Spain’s green foliage, sternly on her way 
History storms onward—shall she fall then thus? 
Shall not another realm’s long, dank decay 
Be blown and scattered o’er the Bosphorus ! 

Yet near to these which the world-spirit’s motion 
Shakes from the bough with its resistless might— 
Others we see full of young life’s commotion 
Clear-eyed and joyous pressing towards the light. 
Ah, what a budding! what a rich unfolding ! 

What thronging germs in young wood and in old ! 
How many buds have burst for our beholding— 
How many crackle loud and full, and bold ! 


And Germany’s rich bud too, God be praised 
Stirs on the stem !—It seems to bursting nigh,— 

Fresh, as when Hermann on its beauty gazed—• 

Fresh, as when Luther from the Wartburg high. 

An ancient growth !—with life still proudly teeming,— 
Still yearning towards the genial sunbeams ever— 

Still ever spring—still aye of freedom dreaming— 

O shall the bud become a blossom never ? 

Yea, with full chalice—if our care but tendeth 
That which with joy and freedom doth expand— 
Provided that which bounteous Nature sendeth 
We lop not as wild shoots with savage hand. 

Provided that we let no mildew cling 
To the young leaves—a canker many-sided— 

Provided brand and sheers away we fling— 

Provided—yes, I only mean—provided! 







298 


GERMAN 


Thou at whose touch the flowers unfold their glory, 

O breath of spring, on us too warmly blow! 

Thou who the germs of nations ope’st in story, 

O breath of Freedom —on this pour thy glow ! 

Thy stillest, deepest sanctuary under, 

O kiss it into fragrant splendour fiee; 

Lord God in Heaven ! what a Flower of Wonder 
One day shall Germany all peerless be ! 

On manhood’s tree spring crowding flower on flower; 
By an eternal law they wave thereon; 

As here one withereth in its final hour, 

There springs another full and glorious one. 

An ever coming and an ever going— 

And never for one hour a sluggish stand ! 

We see them burst,—to earth then see them blowing, 
And every blossom is a Folk—a Land! 

Ferdinand Freiligrat/i. 


EXPERIENCES. 


299 


CHAPTER X. 


NATIONAL EDUCATION IN GERMANY; ITS OBJECT 
and effects; VIEWED WITH REFERENCE TO 
NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 


Vast standing armies—every man, as in Prussia, 
converted into a soldier; other standing armies of 
police,—troops of gens-d’armes,—other standing 
armies of officials,—an active army of censors, or 
literary policemen,—a stupendous system of govern¬ 
ment patronage and employment,—a terrible inqui¬ 
sition,—a system of secret courts and trials; all 
this array of machinery on the part of government 
it might have been imagined, would have proved 
enough to satisfy the jealousy of the German 
governments, of their secure enthralment of so 
passive a people. But as the chapter of political 
poets demonstrates, this is not the case. There is 
an old proverb to be found in almost every country, 
“Tread on a worm, and it will turn again/’ There 
is no people so utterly drilled and trained to the 
purposes of a government, which now-a-days, amid 
the growing intelligence, and the active political 








300 


GERMAN 


spirit of the world, will not still be found to have 
a considerable portion of spirits amongst it, who 
kick at their prison bars, and call on their fellow 
men like Satan to his hosts— 

Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen! 

The close neighbourhood of restless France—the 
growing intercourse with the free spirit and free 
literature of England,—the nearer acquaintance 
through the vast amount of emigration to that 
continent which has established a sort of colonv 
and second Germany in the United States of 
America; and through growing commercial rela¬ 
tions, all this rendered it impossible to keep out 
the light and the leaven of freedom altogether. If 
knowledge then would come in, there was but one 
remedy, and that was to prepare the ground for 
it, in such a manner as to neutralize its arousing 
effects. The mode of preparation, as I have 
already observed, was thousands of years ago 
suggested by king Solomon, ‘‘Bring up a child in 
the way that he should go, and when he is old he 
will not depart from it.” The way that the 
German governments wanted the public to go, it 
had pretty well indicated. It was therefore, as I 
have stated in the chapter on the Political Poets, 
a master-piece of Metternich’s policy to take the 
bull by the horns, and set about bending the twig 
of the public mind in infancy to the purposes of 
despotism; “teaching the young idea to shoot” up 


EXPERIENCES. 


301 


in the form that all the previous institutions of the 
Germanic paternal governments demonstrated to be 
the desired one. The plan commenced in Austria, 
was speedily adopted in Prussia, and carried out 
with the regular systematizing spirit of the Prus¬ 
sian government, into the most complete practical 
scheme imaginable; and thence it not only became 
imitated and diffused all over the rest of Germany, 
but, through the medium of Cousin’s account of it, 
excited the most lively attention in England. The 
feeling which had long been existent in the public 
mind, and of late years had rapidly developed 
itself, that a more general extension of education 
was requisite amongst our working classes, took 
from this flattering account of what was doing in 
Prussia, a wonderful excitement. It was rung 
from side to side of the island, that Germany was 
outstepping us in the race of knowledge; that the 
flame was spreading, and would spread, all over 
the continent; that we were the last in the race of 
nations; and that our neglect of the people in the 
matter of information was a national disgrace. 

In this there was, as is always the case on such 
occasions, much that was true, and much that was 
untrue. Our people needed a more general exten¬ 
sion of the benefits of education; they had a right 
to it—when it was considered what the people, the 
most active, the most industrious—and, spite of 
the want of education, the most intelligent people 
in the world, had done, by their incessant labours 








302 


GERMAN 


and ingenuity, for the wealth of the whole commu¬ 
nity. It was true too, that Prussia had hit on a 
most thorough scheme to convey a certain education 
to every individual of its population; that that 
scheme did all that Prussia wanted; but it was 
not thought necessary to inquire what this scheme 
really did effect; and whether the scheme itself 
was consistent with our free constitution, or w r as 
practicable with our very different state of opinions 
and temper in religion, in politics, and the very 
being of our minds, moulded to a life, activity, 
and independence, by ages of self-exertion and 
manly resistance to all despotic attempts of govern¬ 
ment, to something the very antipodes of German 
apathy and waxlike pliancy. 

In our eager enthusiasm, in our national pride 
and jealousy lest we should be outdone in the 
glorious cause of national intelligence, we leapt 
over a mighty gulf, and called at once for an 
impossibility, most happily an impossibility, and 
for a horrible nuisance in the disguise of a national 
blessing. The public enthusiasm kindled of itself, 
and thus, as is certain to such a state of mind, not 
pausing to examine with sufficient accuracy that 
which was recommended to its notice, was also 
whenever it was inclined to cool, again excited and 
hurried on by the florid declamations and eulogiums 
of certain Education-mongers , who were very sensibly 
looking out for a Board of Education Commission¬ 
ers, and a snug birth therein, each with their 800 k 


EXPERIENCES. 


303 


a year. The indefatigable exertions of this class ol 
agitators, and a very numerous one it is, backed 
by the just and general feeling that a popular 
education was a popular and national right, urged 
on the question till it came to a parliamentary dis¬ 
cussion, and till government began the grand 
attempt of shaping out of the Prussian clay 
brought over, a model for the national instruction 
of the English people. 

Here, thanks to Providence and the true English 
spirit, every model that the plastic hands of Lord 
John Russell, or Sir James Graham, or any other 
political artist could fashion, was knocked all to 
atoms by public indignation the moment it was 
seen. It was then found that we were English and 
not Prussians, from whom they had to work and 
model. That we had our sturdy opinions, political 
and religious, our jealousies, our antipathies, our 
pugnacious dislike to everything like being squeezed 
into one government mould and shape; and still 
more of putting our children to school under the 
bigotry and tenacity of the state clergy, who had 
never taken any pains to conceal their contempt for 
' us, or their notions that every dissenter w r as an 
enemy and a thief to the good motherly estab¬ 
lishment. 

This was seen, and a wonderful illumination and 
revulsion of feeling was the consequence. The 
“ Factory Education Bill” of last year did infinite 
service to the cause of sound sense and reason on 







•304 


GERMAN 


the subject of a Government Education. The 
fate of the question is decided for ever. The thing 
wanted by interested parties—a Government Edu¬ 
cation of the people of England, will never be 
obtained. The great and enlightened body of 
Dissenters are become convinced of this, nay, the 
very Church itself is convinced of the vain attempt 
to drive all the young lambs of England into a 
state fold, to be by them there clipped and branded 
as their own flock. The thing is done , thank God 
for it! The people of England are saved from the 
greatest danger of falling, by their generous and 
eager zeal for the enlightenment of the people, 
into the most fatal snare of political craft which 
ever was invented. They are now put on the 
right track, that of doing for themselves what no 
government can do for them. They are now setting 
to work heartily to educate the working class; each 
religious body forms its own funds, and according 
to its own fashion. The Church has raised its 
150,000/. and talks confidently of its 400,000/.; the 
Methodists have resolved on their 200,000/. And 
other Dissenters are doing the like. It may be 
taken for granted that Government will never again 
be asked to educate the people. The ‘people will 
educate the people. The spirit of mutual emulation 
is worth ten government spirits, and ten thousand 
Government Commissioners living on that wealth 
which should pay schoolmasters. 

But there is yet much which may be done to 


EXPERIENCES. 


305 


throw light on this great and most important subject. 
It is at present seen rather that the question of a 
government education is impracticable, from the 
religious or rather dogmatical difficulties on English 
ground, than that a government education, if it 
could be carried, would be, instead of the greatest 
blessing, the greatest curse that could be inflicted 
on the country. It w r ants yet to be knowrn fully 
and fairly what this Prussian system is, that cer¬ 
tain persons are so anxious to introduce amongst 
us. What are its real objects, its real effects; and 
how totally incapable it is of being transplanted 
hither; how' undesirable that it should be. To 
arrive at a clear and settled conviction on this sub¬ 
ject, we must first have a real knowledge of what 
is the state of German political institutions, and 
w r hat the state of the public mind under them,— 
what is really the comparative state of real educa¬ 
tion between the working classes of Germany and 
our own. I have, therefore, in these pages laid 
open the real condition of the German people in 
the hands of their governments, and I have asked, 
and now ask again, is this a people for us to imi¬ 
tate? Is it from such a people that we are to copy, 
without most cautious investigation, social and 
political institutions? We, a free people, shall 
we voluntarily suffer ourselves by degrees to be 
enslaved by police, by boards of commissioners, 
and above all, by a government nursery institution 
for moulding all our working classes into passive 
obedience? x 








306 


GERMAN 


Before I went to Germany, when I heard of the 
King of Prussia establishing a system of universal 
popular education, I thought he must be mad, or 
dreadfully short-sighted! What, I asked, will this 
monarch have at once a military despotism and an 
educated and enlightened people? The things are 
incompatible! The knowledge will break the arms, 
and overturn the arbitrary power of the monarch. 
But I had not been long in that country when I 
perceived that, on the contrary, this was the most 
subtle measure, founded on the knowledge of 
those with whom he had to deal, that ever was 
devised. The more I saw of this system and its 
effects, the more I resolved on mv return to make 
known what these really were. On my return, 
however, I was agreeably surprised to find I had 
been in some degree anticipated by Mr. Laing, in 
his “ Notes of a Traveller/’ and that the light 
which he had cast on the matter had been made 
good use of by the press, in the discussion of the 
“Factory Education Bill” question. Mr. Laing, 
like other travellers, has fallen into some ludicrous 
errors, which would have stared him strongly in 
the face had he remained to become a resident. 

He astonishes us with a relation of German stu¬ 
dents begging on the highways; particularly one at 
Bonn, and adds, that at Bonn, Heidelberg, etc., 
nothing is more common than to see students 
begging ! 

Now these are mistakes of a traveller. Had 


EXPERIENCES. 


307 


Mr. Laing become a resident he would have been 
the first to correct these mistakes himself. I have 
lived three years in Heidelberg, and have spent 
some time in most of the University towns of 
Germany ; but so far from ever seeing a student 
begging, I know that the thing is impossible, and 
such an assertion immediately excites the laughter 
of every one really acquainted with German 
societv. There was a time in this countrv when 
Oxford students might be plentifully found begging 
all over the country; but you would now just as 
soon find an Oxford student as a German student 
begging on the highway. The young men whom 
Mr. Laing mistook for students were the Hand- 
werks-Burschen. It is a mistake which English 
often make when they are new to the country. 

I notice these errors here because, though not 
belonging strictly to this Chapter, they are too 
striking to be entirely passed over in a volume of 
German experiences; and moreover, to shew that, 
though far from taking Mr. Laing’s evidence on 
German affairs generally, I must testify for him 
that he has perceived the real nature of the Prus¬ 
sian educational system. 

He gives us a very just view of the passive 
spirit of the German people, and yet gravely tells 
us, “That the great proof of the deteriorating 
working of the Prussian educational s} r stem upon 
the public mind is, that the public mind lay torpid 
and unmoved when the religious establishments of 


308 


GERMAN 


the Protestant churches were abolished by royal 
edict, and a third thing—a new Prussian Church, 
neither Lutheran nor Calvinistic—was set up and 
imposed,” etc. Page 176. 

This is, in fact, putting the cart very curiously 
before the horse ; taking an effect for a cause. So 
far, indeed, from the apathy of the Prussian public 
in regard to the amalgamation of the Lutheran 
Church with what is called the Reformed Evan¬ 
gelical Church, being a proof of the deteriorating 
influence of the Prussian educational system, the 
system itself, its adoption and working, is a most 
striking proof of the pliancy and passive obedience 
to which the steady exercise of despotic govern¬ 
ment for ages has brought the public mind in 
Germany. Let any one who has perused these 
pages recal in his mind the singular mechanism 
of despotic institutions by which the whole political 
and social movement of the German public is held 
fast and guided by the government, and he will 
need no reminding that the government system of 
national education, which is comparatively a new 
thing, could not be guilty of establishing the 
passive state of feeling which allowed the crushing 
together of the churches, but that it is another and 
cunning instrument, added to the multitude before 
at work, for confirming and perpetuating beyond all 
hope of remedy this deplorable state of national 
spirit. 

As to the true character, object, value, and prac- 


EXPERIENCES. 


309 


tical results of the government system of education, 
however, Mr. Laing has a true conception of them, 
and deserves well of his country for his able and 
candid exposition of them. 

“ Truly,’’ says he, “ much humbug has been 
played off by literary men—unwittingly, no doubt, 
for they themselves were sincere dupes—upon the 
pious and benevolent feelings of the European 
public, with regard to the excellence of the Prussian 
educational system. They have only looked at the 
obvious, almost mechanical means of diffusing in¬ 
struction, viz: schools for teaching the people to 
read and write, and have, in their estimates and 
recommendation of the means, altogether overlooked 
the all-important circumstance that, if these means 
are not in free action, they will not produce the 
end—the moral and religious improvement of the 
people ; and that the almost mechanical arts of 
reading and writing may be acquired with as little 
moral, religious, and intellectual improvement as 
the manual and platoon exercise. In their admi¬ 
ration of the wheels and machinery, these literary 
men have forgotten to look under the table, and 
see what kind of web all this was producing. Who 
could suppose, while reading pamphlets, reviews, 
and literary articles out of number on national 
education, and on the beautiful system, means, and 
arrangements adopted by Prussia for educating the 
people, and while lost in admiration in the edu¬ 
cational labyrinth of country schools and town 


.‘310 


GERMAN 


schools, common schools and high schools, real 
schools and classical schools, gymnasia, progym¬ 
nasia, normal schools, seminariums, universities— 
who could suppose that with all this education, 
no use of education is allowed; that while reading 
and writing are enforced upon all, thinking, and the 
communication cf thoughts, are prevented by an 
arbitrary censorship of the press ?” etc. 

It is quite true that much humbug, and perhaps 
unconscious humbug, has been practised on the 
English public on this subject; yet these remarks 
do not go quite to the root of the matter. It 
requires to be pointed out and made plain to the 
public mind, that clever as is the arrangement and 
classification of schools for the different classes of 
society in Germany, this has no practical merit 
whatever, so far as concerns us. We want merelv 
schools for the working classes, and therefore, all 
the long array and gradation of schools existing in 
Germany, and detailed here, is for us of no value 
whatever. The free spirit of England and pri¬ 
vate interests will never permit government here, 
as in Germany, to take charge of, regulate, and 
enforce the education of every class of the com¬ 
munity. All that the most sanguine advocates of 
the German system have ever contended for, is 
the introduction of the lowest class of schools, those 
for the working classes. And, in the next place, 
to tell us that this system in Prussia is an ab¬ 
surdity, because while this education is given, the 


EXPERIENCES. 


311 


practical application of it is forbidden, is to tell 
us little, because the application of it in England 
would not, and could not, be forbidden or restricted. 
The whole system would be placed on a different 
ground, under different circumstances, and must 
and would produce different fruits. That is not the 
real danger. It is rather, as regards ourselves, as 
I have mvself alreadv stated on different occasions, 
and as is well stated here, that this system “ is ike 
government of functionarism and despotism united , 
endeavouring to perpetuate itself by turning the educa¬ 
tion of the people , and the means of living of a great 
body of civil functionaries placed over them , into a 
machinery for its own support ,” p. 233. 

Here indeed lies one of the grand truths that 
require our serious attention, in discussing the 
question of a national education, and to which I 
will speedily advert. But first to clear our ground, 
let us take another passage from Mr. Laing. 

“The social value, or importance of the Prussian 
arrangements for diffusing national scholastic edu¬ 
cation, has been evidently overrated; for now that 
the whole system has been in the fullest operation 
in society upon a whole generation, we see morals 
and religion in a more unsatisfactory state in this 
very country than in almost any other in the north 
of Europe. We see nowhere a people in a more 
abject political and civil condition, or with less free 
agency in their social economy, ’ p. 230. 

This is also perfectly true; but it may justly 


312 


GERMAN 


be said, that it is true only of national education 
under these particular circumstances. It is proper 
to look the thing fully in the face, and state from 
what causes this peculiar working of the system 
arises, and how the same system would work under 
quite other circumstances ;—that is, so far as we 
are concerned, how it would work on British 
ground, under British institutions, amid the influ¬ 
ences of British spirit on the mind of that large 
class of the British public for which it is intended, 
with the present state of preparation, intellectual 
habits, and character of that class. To ascertain 
this, let us draw the necessary comparisons and 
conclusions on the clear ground of a fresh chapter. 


EXPERIENCES. 


313 


CHAPTER XI. 


HOW WOULD THE PRUSSIAN SYSTEM OF POPULAR 
EDUCATION OPERATE IN ENGLAND? 


The grand fact, that the Prussian system of popular 
education is almost totally destitute of personal, 
intellectual, and moral effect, I stated in my 
“ Rural and Social Life of Germany/’ I simply 
and briefly there stated the causes, and supported 
my assertions by extracts from the absurd books 
still chiefly read bv the rural population educated 
on this plan. Mr. Laing has made the like state¬ 
ments, and drawn the like conclusions. Mr. Bisset 
Hawkins, in his comprehensive account of the 
statistics of Germany, a work not less distinguished 
for its careful research than for its fair, moderate, 
and impartial character, after giving a very lucid 
detail of the whole Prussian educational system, 
concludes with these remarks: — 

“ After this compact and pleasing picture of the 
Prussian system of public education, it is natural to 
inquire into the results which it has actually pro¬ 
duced. On this subject I find it impossible to 
produce any satisfactory authority. It is in vain 




314 


GERMAN" 


to seek for results in the works of those who have 
only studied the plan in its programme, and in 
decrees, and who have not looked into the farm¬ 
house, the barrack, the manufactory, and the cot¬ 
tage, for the measure of its realization. 

“ Let me not be understood to speak with dis¬ 
respect of a noble attempt to advance humanity. 
I only maintain that such measures are to be tested 
by their operation on the mass of society, and that 
in appreciating political experiments, we are not 
merely to analyse them upon paper. An admirable 
feature of it is the reverence which it encourages 
for the Christian religion. I am the last person to 
attach much weight to my own observations, but 
in default of the remarks of others, I have not 
succeeded in discovering that the Prussian peasant 
or citizen is better informed or more moral than 
his neighbours. His manners are not superior, 
nor does he appear to solace his hours of leisure, 
more than others, with study or books. But the 
formation of character is so continually blended in 
Prussia with the military system, which converts 
every man into a soldier, for a certain period of 
his life, that it is difficult to ascertain the respective 
share which is to be ascribed to the various elements 
which combine to mould the individual. The most 
intelligent and best-informed peasantry in Europe 
has appeared to me to be the Scotch, while the 
Austrian rustic is, perhaps, the happiest.’’—pp. 
328—29. 


EXPERIENCES. 


315 


From this concurrent testimony, a testimony 
which every impartial and intelligent Englishman 
would, while he wondered at the fact, confirm on 
observation, the Prussian national education pro¬ 
duces no obvious result. It does not increase the 
intelligence, it does not quicken the moral, the 
religious, the political feeling of the great mass of 
the working class. 

The causes of this are two. The previous state 
of the mind and intellect of that class, and the 
restrictive powers of government. On a prima 
facie view of the case, one would be inclined to 
assert that no government, however arbitrary and 
strong, could check, and in fact render perfectly 
abortive the influences of education. This was 
my impression before going to Germany; but, as 
I have observed, I then saw that the Prussian 
government knew better. It knew that a people 
might by the long operative agency of government 
be rendered so passive, sluggish, and inert, that a 
certain portion of instruction might be administered 
without any danger of actually awakening the 
mind, and also with the certain effect of bending 
that mind irrevocably to the bias of that system. 

The German working; class is nine-tenths of it 
an agricultural class. It is, moreover, a class of 
small proprietors, who all, feeling a naturally lively 
interest in their own property, work—men, women, 
and children—upon it, so as to leave little leisure 
for reading, reflection, or inquiry. The possession of 


316 


GERMAN 


this property also gives a totally different character 
to poverty in that country to what it bears in ours. 
The prevalence of agricultural pursuits, the absence 
in most parts of manufactures, and the healthy, 
active life of the infancy of manufactures where 
they do exist, combine with this possession of small 
sections of land, to render such a mass of indigent 
people as we see together in England, totally 
unknown and almost inconceivable. Poverty in 
England, where the poor possess nothing but their 
hands, and exist under a dreadfully forcing system 
of high rents and taxation, is a perpetual gnawing 
and heart ache. It is an everlasting wresting with 
care and anxiety. But the poverty of the German 
working class is an easy and care-free poverty. 
Poor as may be the support of the whole family, it 
is a certain support. It is liable to few fluctuations. 
It depends on no one else but the family itself. It 
is the perpetual produce of a fixed heritage, and 
from this cause the great stimulus to mental activity 
is wanting. The German peasant, or artizan, can 
live with such ease and freedom from harassing 
cares, that he becomes, to a degree, with all his 
plodding industry, inert of mind; and presents the 
finest proof in the world, that the mere possession 
of reading, writing, and arithmetic, are a mecha¬ 
nical possession, and do not necessarily in the least 
stir the faculties or awake a craving for knowledge. 
It is one thing, as Mr. Bisset Hawkins observes, 
to study a plan of education in its programme and 


EXPERIENCES. 


317 


its decrees, and another to observe its effects in the 
workshops, the cottage, and the farm-house^ I 
have studied it in the latter places, and find it a 
nullity. The schools which succeed best are those 
higher ones which prepare the young gentry for 
the universities, and the shop class for their trade. 
But no government in England would be allowed 
to interfere with the education of these classes, and 
it is precisely in these classes that governments in 
Germany find themselves at all alarmed at the 
effects of their education, and are most anxiously em¬ 
ployed in neutralizing or counteracting those effects. 
This they do partly by the restrictions, the rewards, 
the official provisions and honours, that we have 
already spoken of. Yet with all this they cannot 
entirely quench the spirit of liberty in these classes. 

It has been the fashion of certain parties in 
England to abuse and ridicule the German students 
for their peculiar college habits. Their dress, their 
singing, and drinking toasts to liberty. This is the 
result of the deep ignorance of the real state of 
things which prevails on this side of the water. 
The blame belongs not to the students, but to the 
. governments. There it ought to be laid, and there 
it cannot be too vehemently denounced. For my 
part, I have never ceased, and never shall do, at 
whatever cost of abuse, to represent the German 
students, with all their extravagance, as amongst 
the most estimable class in Germany. In private 
life I have always found these young men most 


318 


GERMAN 


gentlemanly, accomplished, agreeable, and unas¬ 
suming. Without any desire to palliate what is 
bad in their system of college life, it is but just to 
say that its worst features have been much exagge¬ 
rated, and the blame laid on the wrong shoulders. 
The drinking is really thatof small beer. The duelling, 
again, is merely fencing under another name. The 
youths might be much better employed, that is 
certain, but they are so defended with a sort of 
leathern armour, that they rarely can be hurt, 
except they get a cut on the cheek, as a mark of 
their folly. In their ordinary duels such a thing as 
a death is rarely known. More Englishmen, and 
men of mature years, and with families too, shoot 
one another with pistols in any one year, than there 
are German students killed in their duelling in any 
one century. Often as I have seen these exhibi- 

9 / 

tions, I have never yet seen blood drawn. I once 
introduced a clergyman, the brother-in-law of the 
Bishop of London, to a sight of this duelling, at 
his particular request. There were six duels fought 
while we were present, in which four swords were 
broken, but not a scratch given! “ Is that the 

duelling,” exclaimed the clergyman, “ of which we, 
have heard such horrid accounts? Why, it is per¬ 
fectly ridiculous!” 

In the matter of national liberty and liberal 
opinion, however, how striking is the balance in 
favour of the students. On all occasions the Ger¬ 
man students have stood for liberty. They stood 


EXPERIENCES. 


319 


by Luther. They stood by the Protestant cause 
in the Thirty Years’ War to the death. They stood 
by their country in the expulsion of Napoleon and 
the French. Were it not for the youthful efferves¬ 
cence of their spirit of freedom, freedom itself 
would long ago in that country have ceased to 
exist; to have lost its only living evidence of ever 
having existed. As to their extravagances and 
drinking,—who, let us ask again, are, in fact, really 
to blame? The Government! The Government 
could in any one day put down the whole of the 
peculiar student-life of Germany as they put down 
the Burschenschaft, by simply declaring that no 
young man connected with a club should ever 
receive office. But, on the contrary, and it is a 
black fact in the history of nations, the German 
governments are the sole cause of the existence of this 
system. It is their act and work. They have 'posi¬ 
tively prevented the abolition of the system. They 
carefully encourage and maintain it. They know 
that had the students lost this sort of club life and 
its excitement, they would speedily turn their eyes 
on the enslaved and degraded state of their country, 
and plunge boldly into politics. After the expul¬ 
sion of the French from Germany, the students, as 
I shall presently shew, made a glorious effort to 
throw off this system of club life, and to adopt 
instead of it the most ennobling and religious prac¬ 
tices, and what was the fact? They were violently 
forced back on this old system, and deprived of 



320 


GERMAN 


every resource, but their drinking, singing, and 
fighting! But last year, again, the more sensible 
and reflecting portion of the students in various 
universities set on foot a plan to wean their fellows 
from club life. They entered into associations, 
called Lesevereins, or reading societies, for mental 
amusement and improvement, in opposition to the 
drinking and duelling system,—and what was the 
result? Government orders, in every state where 
these praiseworthy associations appeared, were 
speedily issued, that they should be abandoned; 
and the whole body of students were thrown back 
on this course of life for which they have been so 
much condemned abroad. To this hour these 
reading societies are most jealously prohibited; 
and whenever thev shew themselves in Berlin, in 
Leipsic, in Heidelberg, in Gottingen, in Halle, 
everywhere, they are constantly put down; the 
leaders in these matters being banished from the 
universities, that is, ruined for ever. Are these 
young men then the juster objects of pity or 
censure? They are objects of the truest commisera¬ 
tion and commendation, while the governments are 
the real objects of the most unmitigated censure. 

It was justly said the other day by a German 
gentleman, who feels for the condition of his coun¬ 
try, that the treatment of the students by the present 
monarchs of Germany, the disgraceful breach of 
all promise to them, as well as to the country at 
large, after they had so gloriously exerted themselves 


EXPERIENCES. 


321 


for the rescue of these Princes from their French 
conqueror, the crushing of every plan of moral 
reform which they attempted, of every noble sen¬ 
timent, the forcing of them back on their old 
system of drinking and duelling, was one of the 
most outrageous sins against virtue and human 
nature that ever was perpetrated by callous tyranny 
from the foundation of the world. It is, indeed, a 
crime over which every lover of the noblest aspira¬ 
tions of youth, and of the onward progress of 
nations, might weep tears of blood. Let the fiercest 
weight of indignation then fall on the real criminals, 
and let the brave students themselves receive the 
sympathy that is justly their due. 

As I have already said, not only did the students 
of Germany stand for the good cause in all ages, 
but in the last War of Liberation, in the last grand 
national arising to expel the enemy from their 
native land, they were amongst the most ardent 
and beautiful of the deliverers. At the Battle of 
the Nations before Leipsic, they fought like lions, 
and in the front. On the great march after the 
retreating foe, when the whole population seemed 
to pour itself out after it, there were none so fleet, 
so alert, so joyous, and so gallant as the students. 
They proved then that all their songs and toasts to 
liberty were not the mere noise and foam of idle 
and boasting hours. They did deeds worthy of the 
heroes of the most heroic ages. They fought and 
fell as freely, and as exultingly, as they had sung 

Y 


322 


GERMAN 


tlie son<x of the Fatherland. Far a-head of mil- 

lions, hanging on the closest rear of the hated 

enemy, was seen one brave and devoted band—it 

was the gymnastic troop of the dauntless, the 

patriotic Jahn. Long before, long ere the spirit of 

Germany was roused, when the proud foot of 

Napoleon stood in the heart of the empire, and 

on the very necks of the fallen Princes, where he 

picked out with searching eye, every prominent 

patriot for disgrace or death. Then had Jahn 

preached from his school chair, resistance to the 

tyrant, and freedom or death to the empire. He 

had gathered into his school every brave beating 

heart of the voath around him. He had told them 
«/ 

that if ever they meant to achieve the freedom 
of Germany, and retrieve its lost honour, they must 
arouse themselves from sloth and effeminacy. They 
must practise temperance, moral purity, and phy¬ 
sical exercises, to endow them with vigour and 
activit} r . He had erected his gymnastic school; 
and while he gave to their frames pliancy and 
hardihood, he breathed into their spirits the most 
imperishable love of liberty, of honour, and of 
native land. By his “ Teutsches Volksthum,” he 
sounded abroad, from end to end of Germany, 
the same great and indomitable spirit. The flame 
caught, and spread—it kindled in every German 
university; and morals, religion, patriotism, and 
gymnastics became everywhere the sacred practice 
of the you th, founded on their sacred hope of work¬ 
ing out the salvation of their country. 


EXPERIENCES. 


323 


The great day of opportunity came. The battle 
of Leipsic was fought. There was a loud call by 
the Princes to arms. Gloriously did the students 
answer to the cry. They were promised by all the 
Princes, as the price of victory over their foe— 
a liberty, a constitutional liberty worthy of Ger¬ 
many and Christianity. From every university 
poured forth the youth in glowing enthusiasm— 
far a-head of them went Jahn and his band. The 
armies returned to Germany with shouts, and 
the pealing music of trumpets. The band of Jahn 
had shrunk into a mere shadow —into a little, verv 
little troop—it had been cut to pieces in its daring 
onslaughts on the foe. The greater portion of the 
young heroes, of the inspired boys of Jahn, had 
fallen in the field; and yet happy indeed were 
they, compared with those who returned! These 
returned to the bitterest fate. They came back 
with hearts burning with the victories achieved, 
and the reward of liberty to come. But it never 
did come! The traitors who had promised never 
performed. They had got rid of one tyrant, and 
now resolved to erect themselves into a legion. 
They refused all demands for constitutional rights. 
They trod even on the very hearts of their rescuers. 
Thev flung cold water on the flames of patriotism, 
which had consumed their oppressors. Everywhere 
the noblest spirits were treated as the worst of 
men. Instead of freedom, they were now pro¬ 
mised chains and dungeons as their reward. 

v 2 


324 


GERMAN 


Never, in the history of mankind, did a more 
beautiful and Christian spirit animate the whole 
student youth of a nation. They maintained every¬ 
where their gymnastic schools; they practised the 
strictest morality; they framed associations to put 
down all duelling and drinking; they breathed the 
most religious spirit. The songs sung by the Bur- 
schenschaft of that period are not more distin¬ 
guished for their great poetical power, and their 
ardent spirit of patriotism, than for their fine 
religious faith. In their great song—Das Grosse 
Lied—thev exclaimed— 

9 / 

Yes! liberty in love 
Shall yet be glorified; 

Faith shall approve itself 
In glorious deeds. 

As the free cloud from ocean rises, 

Humanity shall from the people rise; 

Where right and liberty prevail, 

In human nature, the divine unfold. 

Free translation by Mrs. Follen. 

When these glad hopes were crushed by the 
perjured Princes, they dispersed their Burschen- 
schaft with the same Christian spirit. They say, 
alluding to this Union— 

We builded ourselves a house, stately and fair, 

And there in God confided, spite tempest, storm, and care. 

* * * * 

What God laid upon us was misunderstood; 

Our unity excited mistrust e’en in the good. 


EXPERIENCES. 


32*5 


* * * * 

Our ribbon is severed, of black, red, and gold, 

\et God has it permitted, who can his will unfold? 

Then let the house perish ! what matters its fall? 

The soul yet lives within us, and God’s the strength of all! 

The spirit which animated the forsworn Princes 
was as despicable as that of the youth was noble. 
They put down the schools of gymnastics, seized 
the very machinery, even that of Jahn himself, 
who had played so conspicuous a part in the drama 
of their liberation, and never allowed him a penny 
for it. They imprisoned and persecuted him. 
They have done it to this very day, when the old 
man, ruined by the government, is, I believe 
maintained by a subscription amongst the better 
spirits of his country. But they persecuted not 
alone him, but the whole host of patriots who had 
aided them to drive out the French. These were 
pursued from city to city wherever they took refuge 
by the orders and the emissaries of Prussia, Aus¬ 
tria, and Russia. They fled to Switzerland, to 
France,—nowhere were they safe. Some escaped 
to America, some to England, and other countries. 
What a constellation of noble spirits was thus dis¬ 
persed by the breath of despotism into a scattered 
remnant of unhappy fugitives; Arndt, the Follens, 
Borne, Forster, etc. etc. Many were crushed into 
indigent insignificance—many were swallowed up 
by secret dungeons, such as those of Austria, 
which Silvio Pellico has described. But if any 


GERMAN 


one will know what sort of men these were, of 
which the studentdom of Germany was at that time 
composed, what they did, and what they suffered, 
they have only to read the most interesting life of 
Charles Follen, now published by his wife. So 

far as the students of Germany are at present 

* 

concerned, they are, as we have seen, forced back 
by the Princes of Germany, the most shame¬ 
less and disgraceful set of tyrants, who ever held 
the panting heart of humanity under their cloven 
feet, into this barbarous system of drinking and 
duelling, for which the unhappy young men them¬ 
selves have been so unjustly blamed. They are 
actually left bv these Princes without any other 
resource, either physical or intellectual. They are 
not allowed to practise gymnastics, lest they should 
turn their adroitness against their oppressors. They 
are not allowed to have reading societies, on the 
wretched plea, that they would there read those 
newspapers which they now can see on every hotel 
table where they daily dine. 

When the oaks and flowers wither 
In the wasting, parching sun, 

When the people are but shadows. 

And the land a grave for men; 

When tyrannic power presses 
Like a nightmare on the land, 

Then no little bird can sing 
His heartsome freedom-song. 

When the streams are changed to marshes, 

And when all the hills and fountains 


EXPERIENCES. 


327 


Send forth only poisonous vapours, 

And the merry fishes die, 

And the toads and vermin fatten,— 

Then the lightnings must descend, 

And the angry tempests roar, 

That mankind may rise from shadows. 

That the day may dawn from night! 

Free translation from the Great Song, 

How completely it is the case in Germany, that 

-the people are but shadows, 

And the land a grave for men, 

this volume will amply, I trust, shew. That which 
has made the country what it is,—the nightmare 
of the most hateful description that ever sate on 
the souls of enlightened men,—has also made Ger¬ 
man student'life what it is. What sort of men 
are crushed, or wronged, or compelled to shroud 
their indignant thoughts from the light, or to flee 
into distant lands, may be seen in Charles Follen, 
who made himself a great name in America as the 
friend of Channing and of mankind, and whose 
“ Great Song” is perhaps the finest thing which 
has issued, in the form of poetry, for twenty years 
from the press of Germany. It has all the Are 
and the genius of Shelley, and shews us that if 
America had not found in Follen a great preacher, 
she would have probably found in him her greatest 
poet! But to return from the lamentable scene of 
what the Princes have annihilated in Germany to 
what exists. 



328 


GERMAN 


The shop and humble citizen class make good 
use of their schools. They are the only class in 
Germany which can be said to be better educated 
than the parallel class in England; and it is prin¬ 
cipally amongst this class that the spirit of more 
active trade, of manufacturing, and of political 
liberty appears. Everywhere I have found this 
class extremely well informed, full of zeal for 
liberty, and of personal integrity. Even in Heidel¬ 
berg, notorious, as I have shewn, amongst what is 
called its better classes, for political subserviency, 
arrogance, and base moral character, this class, 
wherever I came in contact with it, I found always 
most manly, upright, and ardent in their aspirations 
for a freer state of things; and the Baden Chamber 
of Popular Representatives has of late years distin¬ 
guished itself by its demands for a free press and 
free institutions in the highest manner, far beyond 
all other in Germany. 

But the parallel classes in our country, as I have 
observed, cannot be subjects of government school 
regulations. They can afford schools of their own, 
and are too sturdily independent to suffer any 
government interference with their children. The 
working classes are the only ones on whom the 
government experiment could possibly be tried, 
and on these classes the government system of 
education in Germany is a decided and notorious 
failure. 

When I have gone amongst the working classes 


EXPERIENCES. 


329 


I have found them all educated to the amount of the 
government intentions. They could read, write, 
cast accounts, and sing. But, what more ? Nothing. 
They did not read more than their fathers did 
before them ; the greater part not at all. As chil¬ 
dren, they w r ent to school till eleven or twelve years 
of age, but chiefly from six to eleven o’clock in the 
day, and then had to help in the house or the 
fields. The parents complained, in many cases, 
that they learn little when there. A regulation in 
Prussia is that no master shall teach more than 100 
boys; but even in Prussia, in populous villages, this 
is not and cannot be adhered to, and in other states 
the whole rising generation of one parish are often 
crushed into one school in such a manner that the 
main thing which can be learned must be not to 
tread on one another’s toes. When they left school 
at the legal age, they seldom seemed to open a 
book afterwards, except round the winter stove, and 
of the kind mentioned in my chapter on this subject 
in my “ Rural and Social Life of Germany.” Their 
ignorance, compared with that of our country 
population, even with those who cannot read, was 
astounding. Their education did not seem to shew 
the slightest trace of awaking effect on their minds. 
Thev vegetated on one spot, and knew little of any 
other. I have stood with the peasants on a hill 
top, and that in the neighbourhood of a city too, 
and found that they had never in their lives been 
ten miles from home, nor could tell me the names 








:330 


GERMAN 


of the towns and villages in view. They appeared 
never to have inquired or thought of the matter. 
They saw the landscape and its scattered plains 
without an interest about them. And yet these 
were not only nationally educated persons , but na¬ 
tionally educated proprietors ! 

The savage wildness of the common boys playing 
in the streets of German towns has perhaps no 
parallel in Europe ; yet all these boys go to the 
government schools. As vou walk along, these 
boys, who are pelting at one another, will very 
coolly make a shelter of you, and their fellows 
will fling their pebbles at them while they stand 
close under your nose with the most savage reck- 

v O 

lessness, whether they hit you or not. It is in vain 
to order them off; and if vou strike them they 
raise a hallabaloo, and the police are upon you. 
Against English boys at school, they have the 
utmost rancour; and not only insult them if they 
can find them alone in the streets, but will fall on 
them, eight or ten great fellows on one boy, and 
kick and scratch like cats or monkeys. One of 
my boys was thus beaten, and had his face literally 
pealed by seven great fellows before he could 
rescue himself. Accidents from these Gassenbu- 
ben, as they are called, are of frequent occurrence. 
In Heidelberg, last year, one boy lost an eye and 
a considerable number of his front teeth from a 
stone flung by them. An English gentleman living 
there had his servant’s eye knocked up by them, and 


EXPERIENCES. 


331 


when he complained to the police, they replied that 

“ They took no cognizance of boys, he must apply 

to the parish schoolmasterwho in the consequent 

application replied, that “ he had only jurisdiction 

over his boys in the school!” 

%> 

But the worst of all remains behind. While the 
government education leaves the mind where it 
found it as to all real enlightenment and awaken- 
ment, it does not neglect the power which it pos¬ 
sesses to bend the young subject early to the yoke 
of passive obedience. This government influence 
operates through the whole system, its vigilant 
eye is always fixed upon it; every parish school¬ 
master is under the surveillance of superiors and 
boards, whose converging lives all terminate in the 
bureau of an especial minister—the minister of 
an arbitrary and irresponsible king. So far is 
every schoolmaster from daring to teach anv liberal 
opinions, on any subject, he has his printed in¬ 
structions from the roval cabinet to inculcate sedu- 
lously, and with all his power reverence to royalty, 
and implicit obedience to all its injunctions. 

Is this the beautiful and eulogised Prussian 
system ? Is this such a system as we would seri¬ 
ously ingraft on our English institutions ? Such 
a system could no more be introduced here, than 
an order of Chinese mandarins. Thank God, all 
our indomitable soul of independence—-political, 
moral, religious, intellectual—spurns at the slavish 
idea. But this system, which produces no results 






332 


GERMAN 


but of succumbing to any government pressure, 
would produce strongly different ones here. It 
would fall into the minds of our working classes, 
not like an additional drowsiness on a drowsy gene¬ 
ration, but like a spark into a train of gunpowder* 
The mind of our working classes is already 
quiveringly alive. It is alive through its neces¬ 
sities, alive to oppressions, alive to what it sees, 
hears, and feels around it. It has existed too 
long in a free nation, in a struggling and ever- 
advancing and aspiring nation. It has seen too 
much of the mighty contentions of mighty powers 
and parties, between whose clashing battalions it 
has been often in danger of being crushed, and 
beneath whose hurrying feet it has not seldom been 
trodden. It has heard from the broad-sheet—the 
true flag of British and deathless freedom—the 
startling watchword of zealous alarm too often 
read. In the tavern and the news-room, it has 
found a school-bench and a teacher, when all other 
schools were closed against it. It has listened too 
eagerly to the debates of parliament, to the ha¬ 
rangues of public meetings, ever to be again unedu¬ 
cated , even when it had itself no mechanical power 
of deciphering a hornbook. In the workshop, in 
the public street, in the village lane and the village 
alehouse, the discussion of every principle, reli¬ 
gious or political, has been zealously going on 
for three centuries, and within the last half century 
far too warmly, for the mind of the working classes 


EXPERIENCES. 


333 


of England not to be deeply learned in that know¬ 
ledge which is life and power, and which, if books 
were destroyed and schools burned down, could 
never be annihilated with them. 

Give what education you will to such a popu¬ 
lation, that is, to a population with its mind wide 
awake, and some sort of education it will have,— 
if not within the parish school, then in the parish 
alehouse,—and in the active strife of types with 
types, paper with paper, and the ragged, but rea¬ 
soning workman, with his fellow,—give such in¬ 
struction as you will, and it will go like wildfire. 
You cannot say to such a people, “ thus far shall 
you go in A. B. C. and no further.” As the 
German working classes are still uneducated , that 
is, still unawakened, with all their mechanical 
knowledge of reading and writing, so your working 
classes are already educated without knowing a 
letter. Your letters will be only additional tools 
to work with, spades and picks wherewith to delve 
in the mines of intelligence; and believe me, they 
will use them while they have strength and breath. 

It is then of a thousand times more consequence 
what kind of education we give our population, 
than what the Germans give to theirs. Some ages 
hence their seed, even under the chilling soil of 
their government system, may produce some fruit; 
yours would produce instant coruscations of flame, 
As of a tree on fire by lightning. 

Such is the preexisting sensitiveness and excitability 




334 


GERMAN 


of the British popular mind, especially in the work¬ 
ing class, from the stimulus of personal and political 
causes, that an incalculable amount of good or 
evil will depend upon the kind of instruction given. 

Would you then begin, not by a popular but a 
government bias? Would you entangle the great 
question of national instruction at its very outset 
with the whole bitter and poisonous mass of party, 
political and ecclesiastical biasses, antipathies, and 
prejudices? Having seen and felt the mischievous 
working of a state church, prejudicial, most pre¬ 
judicial, to the real prosperity of that church itself, 
would you run headlong, and with your eyes open, 
into the pitfall of a state education? Would you 
voluntarily establish a new and most monstrous 
government influence? Would you put the soft 
and wax-like minds of the whole body of chil¬ 
dren of the working class in the British empire 
under the immediate hand of government, govern¬ 
ment commissioners, government superintendents, 
government inspectors, and government school¬ 
masters? 

Tt would be the most fatal mistake that ever was 
made by the people of England. Will you say 
that in this country, give but the people education 
and thev will think for themselves? Look at the 
spread of Catholicism. Is that the result of think¬ 
ing? Is that the result of such thinking as you 
would have expected at the present day? Is that 
what you would have looked for from the character 


EXPERIENCES. 


335 


of the Catholic church, which, when it was in 
power, was a church which drenched itself in the 
blood of Protestantism, and only extirpated the 
traces of that blood with fire? and which, now 
that its political power is gone, appeals not to the 
understandings but to the senses and fancy of its 
votaries ? Catholicism, in this free country, has as 
much right to exert itself and recommend itself to 
the public mind as any other form of religion, 
and no doubt our present Catholics do this most 
devoutly and sincerely. For myself, I care not 
of what religious denomination a man is, so that 
he be a conscientious man, and I am the last per¬ 
son to suppose that Catholics now-a-davs would 
desire to perpetrate the tyrannies of the dark 
old times; but as a religion, which commands 
the people to pin its faith on the sleeves of its 
priests, and to reverence cardinals and popes, as 
dictators to all others, how it can recommend itself 
to active, thinking, inquiring, and independent- 
minded English people? But this phenomenon 
may be regarded as anomalous; look then at the 
number of artizans that the tories have led up in 
Conservative Artizan Societies to vote against 
the plainest privileges and rights of Englishmen. 
Look again at the ease with which a government 
commission, with all its subordinate tools, has 
fixed on the nation, spite of outcries from all sides, 
the base and anti-Christian New Poor Law,—a 
law which is as opposed to the merciful character 





336 


GERMAN 


and precepts of our Saviour, as a pebble is to a 
peach, and which laughs at the divine command, 
“ Those whom God has joined let no man put 
asunder;”—a law characterized by heartlessness 
in the guise of prudence, and which particularly 
grinds the widow and the fatherless, as amongst 
its most distinguished recommendations. Look on 
these things, and do not imagine that the age of 
follv, on the one hand, and of mischievous in- 
fluence, on the other, is over. Even if the public 
mind should be fortunate enough to resist the warp¬ 
ing effects of this influence, you would still have 
that influence mightily at work, hampering, embar¬ 
rassing, irritating, and benumbing all popular life 
and free movement. You would have set up a new 
piece of machinery, spreading itself from the cabi¬ 
net, however despotic that might be, through all 
the towns and villages of the kingdom, amongst 
the whole host of country squires and country 
schoolmasters. You would have created a bench 
of commissioners, with all its inspectors and its 
influences;—another regiment in that army of paid 
myrmidons, by which our government, in imita¬ 
tion of those which I have in this volume depicted, 
has long been surrounding itself with means of 
most effectual power. By these benches of com¬ 
missioners you set agape the innumerable swarm 
of men who, in this age and country, look hungrily 
to government fora post and a pittance, rather than 
to honest labour or wholesome emigration. We 


EXPERIENCES. 


337 


have already too much of this, and let me shout the 
warning into the ears of my countrymen, that if 
they do not check the scheme of these Boards of 
Commissioners, they will one day most bitterly 
repent it. They will grow, as they have grown in 
Germany, into the most impregnable bulwarks of 
despotism, because they extend their scheming 
spirit of official employment over a vast surface, 
and through a vast host of families agape with 
needy gentility,—for any office that would add the 
sons to the already overwhelming multitude who 
swear by the government loaf, to cut and come 
again themselves, but to turn a most crusty front 
to all cries for reform. 

I trust that I have shewn in the enslaved and 
abject political condition of our German neighbours 
the dangers of this tendency to Government intru¬ 
sion into social institutions. Let us assure ourselves 
then, once for all, that a National Education 
in England must proceed solely from the 
nation. That a National Education must be 
carefully contradistinguished from a Government 
Education. Yes, the education of the people 
must come, as all our other institutions have come, 
from the people. It is the people who in England 
have done every thing to build up the nation in 
body and in spirit. It is the people, and not the 
government, who have created our mighty com¬ 
merce, our amazing manufactures, who have built 
our ships, and our shops, and our machinery. It 

z 


t 


I 











338 


GERMAN 


is the people who have gone out and discovered 
countries, and founded colonies; the government 
has only stepped in afterwards to stock them with 
officers, or to lose them, as it did in America. 
It is the people, and the money of the people, 
which have cut our canals and thrown up our rail¬ 
roads, and sent the fiery trains in the magnificence 
of scientific glory along them. It is the people 
and its monevthat have established Bible Societies, 
Missionary Societies, Peace Societies, Anti-Slavery 
Societies, Provident Societies, Savings Banks, and 
all the good and philanthropic associations which 
distinguish and dignify the English character. It is 
the English people and its money that have visited 
the heathen in all their remotest isles and forests, 
and reared before their eyes the arts and cities of 
civilized life, and called on them to come to school 
to learn these arts, and the literature and religion 
of so great a people. And shall the English 
people now abandon this glorious and unparalleled 
career, and adopt that which has enslaved the 
whole intellectual German race ? Shall it, in the 
only instance, and the most monstrous of all, 
weakly look to government to do that which it can 
itself alone do well and soundly? God forbid it, 
and every sense of prudence and protection for¬ 
bid it. 

And where, indeed, shall the money come from 
to do this ? Has the government got some extra¬ 
ordinary fund for this purpose? No, the govern- 


EXPERIENCES. 


339 


inent has got no money at all. If the government 
were to undertake the education of the people, 
it must first take the cash out of the people’s 
pockets; and how could it spend it, how does it 
spend the people’s money ? It would first sift out 
all the gold for its machinery, its commissioners’ 
genteel salaries, its inspectors and superintendents 
and collectors, and then bestow the small change 
on the parish schools. Is this a process that the 
English people would stand gently by to witness? 
No, the sickly dream is at an end. Let the Church 
raise its million if it pleases, and it can readily do it; 
let the Methodists raise their hundred thousand, 
they could soon raise their five hundred thousand; 
let the Congregationalists raise their proposed five 
hundred thousand, they could readily do far more; 
and let the fire of emulation burn from end to end of 
the Empire. Better ten thousand times that the 
system should grow gradually, than start into life at 
once a government monster. Better that there 
should be, as we are so often told, vast masses that 
none but a national power can at once reach, than 
that these vast masses should be put under the 
yoke of government guidance and surveillance. 
The power of the emulative British people will, 
under the voluntary system, rapidly become a na¬ 
tional power. Church will contend with church, 
sect with sect, party with party, who shall educate 
the most children that it may rear the most prose¬ 
lytes. There is no impulse in England so strong 

z 2 



340 


GERMAN 


and effectual as this. And on this system you 
need no plottings and plannings as to who shall 
teach your children religion. You need not waste 
a moment’s thought on this subject. You will do 
that yourselves. Let us have jealousies, and heart¬ 
burnings, and rivalries, as many as you please,— 
anything but a government literary police. The 
lire of popular emulation is a noble fire. Let 
every man and every woman fling into it his gold 
and her jewels, and out of it will come not the golden 
calf of political servility, but the British John 
Bull himself, purified from his rustic rudeness—the 
perfect gentleman and the scholar; he will come 
forth in all his glory—enjoying the proud satisfac¬ 
tion of having, instead of laying an additional 
government chain on his neck, paid with his own 
hands for his own education. 

Before closing this subject, let me suggest what 
may become very important when the people, as 
it will do, fairly sets about to educate itself: that 
for carrying out a vast extent of education, very 
little expense is really required. Instead of those 
great new' parish schools, a second edition of the 
huge parish unions, with all their masses of brick¬ 
work and masses of jobbery, which w r e should have 
to pay for under a government system of education— 
a consideration not trivial in the question—it is 
a fact that almost all the working class might be 
educated with very little original outlay. Mrs. 
Hippersley Tuckfield has long been at work de- 


EXPERIENCES. 


341 


monstrating how great is the mistake that great 
school-houses and expensive establishments are at 
all requisite for educating the people. On their 
own estates, in the neighbourhood of Bristol, she 
began by teaching the poor children herself, taking 
an empty cottage for the purpose. She soon found 
proper teachers to take the actual business of in¬ 
struction olf her hands, and could educate all the 
poor of their parishes for a most trifling sum. In 
her little works on this subject, published by Taylor 
and Walton, she tells you that it is a great mistake 
to be looking for great school-houses, and great 
gatherings together of children, for the education 
of the people. That the whole thing may be 
managed on the simplest and most inexpensive scale. 
“ Considering,” she says, in one of these excellent 
little volumes,* “the subject of education in itself, 
apart from the difficulties we have now to encounter, 
large schools are not calculated to answer the true, 
the legitimate end of education—the formation of 
moral and religious characters—and, therefore, our 
ultimate end ought to he to establish small schools .” 

She reminds us very truly, how easy it is to 
procure an empty room or cottage in almost every 
village or parish, where some young man or woman 
may educate as many children at little cost, as 

* Education for the People, by Mrs. Hippersley Tuckfield 
containing:—I. Pastoral Teaching; II. Village Teaching; 
III. The Teacher’s Text Book ; IV. Instruction of the Deaf 
and Dumb. London: Taylor and Walton. 







342 


GERMAN 


ought to be brought together, either on account 
of health or morals. As to teachers, she says truly, 
we do not at first so much want very accomplished 
people, as good people whose hearts are in the 
work; and she says, it is amazing when you come 
earnestly to look out for them, what vast numbers 
of excellent young women, and young men too, 
may be found, quite sufficiently qualified, and 
quite willing to undertake the task at a mode¬ 
rate salary. How much then might be done 
almost without any preparation, in every village 
of the empire, by people of comparatively small 
means. How very much by people of large means, 
or by the combination of a few respectable inhabit 
tants. How many young people are there, vainly 
seeking employment, who would rejoice to become 
schoolmasters and schoolmistresses on this simple 
plan! How much interesting employment would 
it find for young gentlemen and young ladies, in 
town and country, who now have little to occupy 
existence, beyond the daily drive, the daily gossip, 
the daily dinner, or the last new novel! The whole 
population of poor children might, in a very few 
weeks, on this plan, be put to school almost with¬ 
out an effort, or sensible cost, and the nation be 
astounded at the sudden accomplishment of that 
which it has so long looked upon as an Herculean 
labour, achievable only by the whole force of a 
national government, which, by the bye, has already 
by far more on its hands than it can or does manage 
to public satisfaction. 


EXPERIENCES. 


343 


This view of things is well worthy of considera¬ 
tion, but there is also an auxiliary plan not the less 
so, and that is that of Working Schools. These, 
especially in the agricultural districts, appear most 
admirably adapted to give at once an excellent 
education, to teach the rudiments of trades, gar¬ 
dening, management of household offices, and to 
reduce, if not to annihilate, the expense of educa¬ 
tion itself. Such schools may be seen in operation 
on the estates of Lord Lovelace and Lady Byron; 
in several places amongst the Society of Friends; 
nay, in the very heart of Whitechapel, in London, 
there is a working school which, chiefly by printing 
amongst the boys and sewing and knitting amongst 
the girls, entirely maintains itself, and at the same 
time so well educates the children, not only in 
school instruction, but in habits of industry and 
adroitness in labour, that they are eagerly sought 
after by tradesmen and housekeepers, Is there any 
reason why these admirable schools, so adapted to 
the national wants, should not be multiplied ad 
infinitum. Depend upon it, if the people of England 
will themselves awake to a sense of the real powers 
and facilities in their own hands, they will begin 
most heartily to wonder why they have been calling 
on government so long and clamorously. 








344 


GERMAN 


CHAPTER XIL 


CONCLUDING REMARKS. 


In closing this little volume, let me once more 
recal to the reader’s mind its object. It is simply 
to furnish to my countrymen some useful guidance 
in visiting Germany, and some still more useful 
warnings as to what we are in danger of importing 
thence. But let no one fall into the error of sup¬ 
posing that I am hostile to Germany itself, and 
would willingly foment a spirit of dislike between 
ourselves and its people. On the contrary, I am 
convinced that a better knowledge of each other 
can only produce mutual advantage and pleasure. 

Here I have described the unholv nature of the 

•> 

German governments, and the grand failing of 
the people, their subservience to them; in my 
“ Rural and Social Life of Germany,” I have 
described the people as they are, socially and in¬ 
tellectually; and I am convinced that time will 
only bind the two nations more closely together, 
and augment the interchange of commodities and 
ideas between them. But I would most clearly 
demonstrate, that it is not from Germany that we 




EXPERIENCES. 


345 


must receive political institutions. In social life, 
there is much that we might with benefit adopt 
from them—more simplicity of life, more ease and 
inexpensive habits; less feverish thirst after im¬ 
mense wealth, and more calm enjoyment of nature, 
of music, and of social amusements. If we could 
resemble them in the more equal diffusion of com¬ 
fort, it would be a great advance in national and 
individual happiness; and this we may, no doubt, 
to a great degree effect, by encouraging our faci¬ 
lities of trading with them. The abolition of our 
corn-laws will, unquestionably, do much in this 
direction. 

I have quoted Mr. Laing on the subject of edu¬ 
cation, but, in opposition to his reasonings, I must 
here remark, how rapidly the demand for our 
manufactured articles increases in Germany, spite 
of these laws and of the counter impositions of the 
Zoll-Verein; an increase which must be astonish¬ 
ingly stimulated by the removal of these obstacles. 

In his chapter on the German League, in his 
(t Notes of a Traveller,” Mr. Laing shews, to the 
complete satisfaction of himself at least, that there 
is no chance or possibility of Germany ever raising 
a manufactory for home consumption, because 
nearly everybody, he says, manufactures for him¬ 
self, and therefore we can lose no trade on that 
score. Now the very fact of the German League 
putting protective duties on our manufactures might 
have been proof enough to so acute a person as 








346 


GERMAN 


Mr. Laing, that there were consumers of manu¬ 
factured goods in Germany. To lay duties on what 
did not come into the country, and could not come 
into it, if there were no consumers, would have 
been the act of idiots. He represents the Germans, 
therefore, as not at all hoping to supply a home 
demand, which does not and cannot exist, but to 
be engaged in a mad scheme of foreign exportation 
of their manufactured goods,—a trade, he tell us, 
that England by her power at sea, can on any 
occasion of war cut off at once. But Mr. Laing 
vindicates the League from these absurdities, by 
himself shewing immediately afterwards, and in 
direct opposition to his own statements and reason¬ 
ings, that Germany does import and consume 
amongst its own domestic population, vast quan¬ 
tities of manufactured goods; and that we export 
to Germany annually, spite of their duties, from 
six to eight million pounds sterling worth of pro¬ 
duce and manufactured goods; and of this expressly 
upwards of fifty millions of yards of cotton goods 
alone! 

A country, indeed, where every family manu¬ 
factured its clothing, would be a country without 
drapers’ shops, and one wonders where Mr. Laing’s 
eyes must have been when he did not see the nume¬ 
rous drapers’ shops in all their towns, and well- 
stocked ones too. The simple fact is, that the 
peasantry and whole agricultural population grow 
their own flax and hemp, and manufacture linen 


EXPERIENCES. 


347 


for themselves; but the greater part of these people 
have no wool, except in a few particular districts, 
and therefore must buy their woollen garments. 
The population of the towns manufacture very little 
for household wear, except coarse linen and stock¬ 
ings ; and every person who uses his eyes will see 
the bulk of the town population clothed in pur¬ 
chased linens and broad cloths. 

What is more singular in Mr. Laing’s statements 
is that, having set out with the extraordinary as¬ 
sertion that Germany, wanting not even its own 
manufactures, must therefore attempt to drive a 
foreign trade, goes on directly to say that the Zoll- 
Verein can do us no harm on another ground. That 
spite of its protective duties against our manufac¬ 
tures—strange protective duties if these manufac¬ 
tures are not and cannot be on demand!—the richer 
Germany becomes through the Zoll-Verein, the 
more goods it must take of us! 

What goods ? Surely not goods that it does not 
want! Surely not goods that it manufactures and 
yet has no consumers for? But yes, strange as it 
may seem, he assures us that every year since the 
establishment of the Zoll-Verein, its demand for our 
manufactured goods has risen rapidly, so that while 
in 1829 it took only 6,712,580/. worth of these, in 
1837 it took 8,876,498/. worth. 

These are strange mistakes, and shew that so far 
from Germany not manufacturing for itself, nor 
wanting manufactures from us, spite of all its rapidly 


348 


GERMAN 


increasing manufactories, it cannot supply itself, 
but, on the contrary, every year demands more 
and more from us. The following Tables of Exports 
of woollen and mixed woollen and cotton goods 
alone will shew this most strikingly. 

STUFFS. 



1820—4 

1825—9 

1830—4 

1835—9 

1840—2 


Annual 

Annual 

Annual 

Annual 

Annual 

Av. No. of 

Av. No. of 

Av. No. of 

Av. No. of 

Av.No.of 


Pieces. 

Pieces. 

Pieces. 

Pieces. 

Pieces. 

Germany . 

.274,073 

425,000 

446,081 

358,500 

519,471 

Italy .. 

. 84,725 

73,677 

98.287 

100,591 

115,811 

The Netherlands .. 

. 50,104 

85,541 

105,221 

151,676 

221.353 

Portugal & Azores 

26,991 

25,291 

22,477 

32,148 

39,832 

Russia . 

. 52,448 

31,457 

30.307 

35,986 

56,690 

Spain & Canaries 

8,388 

27,813 

35,876 

14,336 

25,691 

To all Europe 

535,272 

698,895 

774,505 

752,586 

1,080,899 

East In. & China ., 

.194,295 

183,682 

162,149 

124,000 

137,427 

Brazil.. 

. 18,093 

38,341 

34,890 

34,427 

72,882 

Mexico '.. 

. 21,425 

21,914 

31,236 

28,717 

97,243 

United States ..., 

.248,436 

228,602 

419,534 

392,288 

351,388 

British Colonies . 

. 40,585 

47,743 

70,620 

83,230 

140,795 

Total Annual! 






Average to}- 1,064,441 

1,228,238 

1,505,988 

1,428,914 

1,901,734 

, all Countries ' 






WOOLLENS MIXED WITH COTTONS. 

Germany .. 

. 58,914 

99,178 

287,461 

263 832 

568,378 

Italy . 

. 48,168 

87,090 

71,780 

116.967 

305,589 

The Netherlands 

169,515 

286,082 

248,235 

154,061 

531,336 

Portugal & Azores 

42,223 

37,693 

48,630 

47,023 

68,537 

Russia . 

. 23,966 

17,674 

5,014 

17,675 

92.216 

Spain & Canaries 

15,125 

31,939 

35,415 

2,267 

11,310 

To all Europe 499,177 

610,069 

753,305 

723,400 

2,032,449 

East In. & China . 

. 7,121 

23,491 

42,456 

59,454 

76,788 

Brazil. 

. 50,352 

81,791 

71.261 

114,034 

113,717 

Mexico . 

.105,589 

124,571 

99,613 

109,184 

511,421 

United States ... 

.138,513 

125,514 

309,331 

579,790 

1,825,456 

British Colonies . 

. 73.268 

57,078 

57,370 

98,846 

591,660 

Total Annual 1 






Average to all > 

893,470 

1,043,365 

1,352,347 

1,705,038 

3,199,244 

Countries . ) 











































EXPERIENCES. 


349 


Here we see that Germany actually takes yearly 
from us more stuffs by far than any other country 
in the world, not even excepting the United States 
of America, or our own colonies. That it takes 
more mixed woollen and cotton cloths than any 
country in the world, with those two exceptions; 
that it took in 1820, only 274,073 pieces of stuffs, 
in 1840 not less than 519,471 pieces. In 1820, 
of mixed cotton and woollens, only 58,914 pieces; 
in 1840 not less than 568,378 pieces. By the same 
returns it also appears that Germany took in 1841 
not less than 3,251,106 lbs. of w r oollen yarn, while 
the proportions which other manufacturing countries 
took from us w r ere— 

United States . 213,513 lbs. France . . 363,988 lbs. 

Holland . . 1,480,400 Russia . . 332,907 

Not to occupy too much space with these par¬ 
ticulars, I will only state that this increase of our 
exports of manufactures to Germany, since the 
establishment of the Zoll-Verein, applies not merely 
to these articles, but to all articles, as is evidenced 
by the sum total of these exports in the government 
returns. In 1831, the value of our exported manu¬ 
factures to Germany was 3,642,952/. These have 
since steadily advanced, till, in 1840, the value was 
5,408,499/.;—while those of the United States of 
America, which in 1831, were 9,053,583/. have, 
during the same period, fallen to 5,283,020!!! 
affording not only a striking contrast, but also a 
solemn warning, on the folly of throwing obstruc¬ 
tions by our corn-laws in the way of commerce. 



•350 


GERMAN 


Mr. Laing tells us that we get little or no corn 
from Germany, and that both Dr. Browing and Mr. 
Jacobs are wrong on that head. That we get it from 
the banks of the Vistula; and yet afterwards shews 
us, that from Hamburg, Bremen, etc. are received 
very large supplies of corn out of the territories of 
the Zoll-Verein. Prussian Poland included in this 
and the immense corn plains of the north of Ger¬ 
many, send us vast quantities, and could, under 
a steady and safe demand, send us much more. 
It has been shewn that, under the effect of our 
corn-laws, not only have vast quantities of corn 
been suffered to spoil in this country when thou¬ 
sands were famishing,* but immense quantities also 

* Effect of Protection. —On Wednesday, a quantity of 
foreign wheat, which had become heated, was taken out of a 
bonding warehouse at Sunderland, and conveyed to a large 
dunghill in carts, where it was mixed with the manure, so as to 
prevent it being used as food, the duty not having been paid on 
it .—Newcastle Chronicle. 

[This is a counterpart to the fact disclosed to the House of 
Commons in 1339, by Mr. Baines, the then M.P. for Leeds, 
who moved for “a return of the quantity of corn and other 
grain, abandoned in bond and destroyed since 1828,” when the 
following return was made to the Parliament under “our 
most religious and gracious Queen,” then assembled :— 

2330 quarters of Wheat. 


63 

do. 

Barley. 

738 

do. 

Oats. 

23 

do. 

Peas. 

4 

do. 

Rye. 

38 

do. 

Beans. 

43 

do. 

Indian Corn. 

26 

cwt. of 

Flour. 


The return is very particular; fiscal laws made by land- 
owners are very precise. To make sure that not a grain of 
these more than 3000 quarters of corn should be used, it was 
‘‘all destroyed,”—so says the return; “a// destroyed under the 


EXPERIENCES. 


351 


in the warehouses on the Danube, the Vistula, and 
other rivers. Nay, Mr. Laing himself, when he 
comes to combat the assertions of certain authori¬ 
ties, that the Continent cannot send us corn at a 
less price than 45s., and to tell us that there can 
be no minimum price on the Continent, tells us 
the same thing himself, p. 285. 

The very alarm which the Germans testify at the 
prospect of the abolition of our corn-laws, and 
which rises in their newspapers to a perfectly frantic 
tone, is proof enough of their internal conviction that 
they cannot maintain their manufacturing system, 
if we can manufacture on the strength of their and 
other countries’ cheap corn. The very wealth, size, 
and prosperity of Hamburg, which is a city based 
not on any particular internal trade or manufac¬ 
tures of its own, but has arisen almost entirely 
to its present importance on the profits of its 
carrying trade between Germany and other coun¬ 
tries, but especially ours, is another sufficient proof 
what that trade will be when we have abolished 
our corn-laws. In the very face of these laws, 
and in the face of the vaunted growth of German 
manufactures, of which the district of Dusseldorf, 
including Elberfeld, is said by their statistical 
writers to contain above 160 iron founderies, 142 

inspection of the proper officers The foreign corn thus de¬ 
stroyed under this wicked law, would have furnished bread for 
6000 souls during a whole year! !! Such are the laws of the 
British Legislature, sanctioned and upheld by Bishops, calling 
themselves the descendants of the Apostles! “ By their fruits 
shall ye know them.”] —The League. 




352 


GERMAN EXPERIENCES. 


iron and steel manufactories, 6000 silk, and more 
than 8000 cotton power-looms, Hamburg has 
grown to a population of 122,000 within the city, 
and 30,000 in the environs; is full of wealth; and 
with its own 200 merchant vessels, and in the 
bottoms of all other nations, drives a trade not only 
with every country of Europe, but with America 
and the East and West Indies. 

Let our corn-laws once be abolished, and not all 
the powers on earth can prevent the active inhabi¬ 
tants of Hamburg driving a great trade between 
the two countries, pouring their corn and wine into 
ours, and our manufactures into theirs.* 

But in matters of institutions it is to us that the 
Germans must look, not us to them. The popular 
progress going on steadily in our country will not 
only renovate, in a few years, all the magnificent 
powers of our constitution, but will kindle a flame 
that will burn far and wide through other king¬ 
doms. England, oppressed as she is at present 
with debt, manufacturing distress, and aristocratic 
impositions, is destined, at no distant period, to be 
not only free and great herself, but the liberator of 
Europe and the Civilized World. 

* Not only ought our corn laws to be abolished, but the 
duties on German wines to be reduced, as furnishing a much 
more agreeable and wholesome wine for summer than the hot 
and brandied Spanish wines. 


London: 

Printed by Manning and Mason, Ivy Lane, St. Paal’s. 

~> jj 
















































































-S 

is 

■2 

<V 







r* 

</> 


.3 ' 





H 


v' 














r> av •* 
* * 



U n, < - -V> ^ 

o ^ '-' -i a v 

5^ / -° * ■*• xS ^G x / ** ] s ^ ,a 

°o G°'» C ^1 C V’% ** A* S '* l, ‘ 





* 19 ^ 

U y 0 * L * 


C> c 


o 

o 

"bo* 

s 





, * ••■•••■ > i v =, 

^ ■% ' *&mM * 

ss * 4, "T^S 

c£* i. C ^C£Af'^ r '' <" f\ 



■< 'o 

o x 

> ^ 


/ * 

( 

V> V- ' * 

°/ 

** »{?LJ 

* 



r 


Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proc 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 


i0 o 



-> b 

>; * 

„ > j •» $■ ^ 
O % ^ A* o> f • 

'k C G V * ' ‘ 0 a 

? .'r. AV A rSAd(? 


Treatment Date: JUN 20 fl| 

PreservationTechnologii 


A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATH 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 

,V^ '' V A 


























































































